Tim Parfitt's Blog
February 23, 2026
Letter from Spain #73
In 1993, when Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was still Prince Andrew, I had dinner in Madrid with his soon-to-be ex-father-in-law, Major Ronald Ferguson.
‘Soon-to-be’, because it was shortly after a Texan millionaire had been photographed sucking Sarah Ferguson’s toes while she sunbathed topless at a villa in St Tropez. This Texan was apparently her ‘financial advisor’. Perhaps the world should have learnt more from it at the time.
Ronald Ferguson had come over to Madrid to referee the annual Spanish Vogue polo tournament that I’d set up while running Ediciones Condé Nast. The night before, I took him to Casa Lucio - one of Madrid’s finest establishments - and treated him to their speciality of huevos estrellados. He was a nice enough guy. A bit grumpy, a bit pompous - okay, very pompous - but what do you expect?
Over dinner, I didn’t mention his daughter’s toes. Nor did I mention a News of the World story about his membership of a London massage parlour staffed by girls who wore ‘starched white medical gowns’ and allegedly offered à la carte sexual services. Perhaps the world should have learnt more from that at the time, too.
Anyway, he had fun refereeing the game at Madrid’s Club de Campo and the Spanish prensa de corazón loved it. But therein lies part of the problem: we needed a polo ‘celeb’ like the galloping major and several others in order to get press coverage for the Vogue Polo Cup, keeping our clients and sponsors happy along the way. No one was interested in the polo itself.
23 years later, in June 2016 in London, I found myself sitting on a table adjacent to a very loud Sarah Ferguson - at a charity dinner at the Masterpiece Art Fair in Chelsea, to be exact. There was a painting that she had collaborated on being auctioned among other items - for the charity Children in Crisis. At least I hope it was for a charity.
Fergie was shouting at guests to ‘bid higher’ - a bit like Geldof’s ‘give us yer f**king money’ (which he actually never said). She caught my eye and started gesturing at me, in a sort of grasping, money-grabbing, ‘get-your-wallet-out’ way. Then I think she quickly realised she was wasting her time with me, beckoning the wrong (and empty) wallet.
Therein lies part of the same problem: the organisers needed a gimme-yer-money royal ‘celeb’ at this charity event in order to get us guests to … hand over our money. Except me, as I have none.
I’ve never met Andrew, thank God.
However, I’ve met enough of these so-called ‘trade envoys’ and their civil-servant flunkies over the years to picture Air Miles Andy as being one of the very worst.
According to the UK Gov site, there are currently 32 Trade Envoys covering 73 markets across 6 continents who ‘engage on substantial trade opportunities identified by government’.
No, they don’t.
Although membership of the trade envoy ‘programme’ is cross party from both the House of Commons and House of Lords - and although it is ‘voluntary and unpaid’ - I believe most of them are just freeloaders.
In addition to these so-called ‘trade envoys’, there are often ‘relations’ ministers, delegates or attachés. Also freeloaders.
We don’t need them. Bang goes any hope I ever had of an MBE …
Over 30 years working in Spain (on and off), I’ve seen my fair share of cronies from the ‘UK Trade and Investment’ (now the Department of International Trade) coming over to Spain on a jolly. To do what, exactly? Promote marmalade? Whisky? Stilton cheese? Paddington effing Bear? Prior to the London 2012 Olympics, we even had a whole delegation come over to Barcelona to ‘learn about the Catalan capital’s success and legacy from the 1992 Olympics’. I think all they did was drink.
I kid you not … we had another one over just last week. The UK’s so-called ‘EU relations Minister’. They wouldn’t need an EU Relations Minister if they hadn’t voted for Brexit. He was visiting Spain, ‘where he raised important issues for the British expat community’. Bollocks, he did.
During his two-day visit, the EU Relations Minister apparently ‘reaffirmed his commitment to work with Spain on issues of mutual interest’, the official email I received from the British Embassy summarising the trip read. Among other things, ‘the Minister visited Madrid’s Mercado de La Paz to highlight opportunities for British food exports to Spain, and sampled some Stilton cheese which he heard is a hit with expats and locals alike’.
Golly gosh, well done. How much did the trip cost?
‘A key focus of discussions included the UK and EU’s work to agree a new food and drink trade deal by 2027. This will make it significantly easier for British expats to purchase UK products and bring produce home when visiting family and friends.’ FFS … who really needs this?
Now imagine Air Miles Andy in such a role … a ‘royal’, a ‘celeb’ and ‘trade envoy’ all in one. What do you get? An arrogant, freeloading scumbag who sleeps with 72 teddy bears and is unable to function without a valet, a chef and a butler, who’d ‘arrive late and only talk to the young women and then leave early’. No one dared criticise him ‘because he was royalty’ and ‘the official line was that, of course, he was doing a wonderful job.’
Not only did he spend 10 years on his worldwide jolly as the UK’s ‘Special Representative for International Trade and Investment’, but it seems he was passing on all details of the trips to his paedophile chum Epstein - who in turn brokered other arrangements and, according to one account, ‘skimmed some cream off the cake’.
The latest insult, according to ‘whistleblowing retired civil servants’ in a BBC report, is that Andrew also charged taxpayers for massages while working as a trade envoy.
One former civil servant has said he ‘regrets that Andrew was allowed to get away with expenses for a massage, when it might have been a chance to check his behaviour’.
‘I can’t say it would have stopped him, but we should have flagged that something was wrong,’ he said.
Something went wrong way before he was putting his massages on expenses … it all goes back to those toe-sucking days.
While writing this, I’ve just seen that Peter Mandelson has also been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. What took them so long?
For those who are interested …The Madrid Connection - Research & Images
After The Barcelona Connection was published in April 2023, I started to post images and notes in this Substack blog about my research for the novel, especially about Salvador Dalí and many of the locations that appear in the book - from Nîmes to Barcelona, with Figueres, Cadaqués, Púbol, La Bisbal and even Girona airport in between. Links to all those posts can be found below.
I am now doing the same with The Madrid Connection - just for those who might be interested!
Past posts on research and images for the book:
Letter from Spain #71 - Prologue, and the ‘Prado by Night’.
Letter from Spain #70 - time spent in the Prado Museum ‘casing the joint’.
In my next post I’ll put some notes and images that relate to Chapter 1 that takes place in the Casa del Campo and then also in the streets surrounding the Italian Embassy in Madrid.
A bit about me: on and off, I have worked in the media in Spain for some 30 years (click here for more info). Currently, in addition to writing my books set in Spain and developing them for the screen (see below), I also chat briefly on most Wednesday mornings to Giles Brown on Talk Radio Europe about the latest news from Spain.
Books, Reviews, Research, News & EventsOn Friday 17 April at 8pm I am going to be presenting The Madrid Connection in the wonderful Secret Kingdoms Bookshop in Madrid, alongside Ann Bateson. It’s a free event (with refreshments), but as places are limited the bookshop requests you buy a €3 voucher redeemable at the event. Please come along if you are in Madrid at that time - it would be great to see you there! Here’s a link to reserve a place, or click on the image below.
The Madrid ConnectionPublished on 26 Nov 2025, The Madrid Connection is a standalone crime-thriller, but also a sequel to The Barcelona Connection (see below).
Here’s the back cover blurb from The Madrid Connection:
Of all the paintings in all the galleries in all of Madrid.
They chose a Caravaggio.
And they chose last night.
On the night Madrid hosts the Champions League Final, disaster erupts at the Prado Museum: a guard is murdered and a Caravaggio is stolen.
British art detective Benjamin Blake, hoping for a quiet few days in the city on a low-key assignment, instead finds himself dragged into the chaos he swore to avoid.
Suddenly he’s the investigation’s uninvited headache – and possibly its key.
Rival mafias begin circling. The Asians want him gone. The Italians want him alive – at least for now.
As the cultural bureaucrats drag him into the case to deflect from their own failings, Madrid’s homicide chief – choking on his own lies – wants him nowhere near the case, let alone the truth.
Across the city, journalist Elena Carmona is in Madrid on a separate assignment, digging into the poison of racism in football – an evil that opens into a far wider conspiracy.
Trafficking, exploitation and revenge run beneath the pitch and deep into the criminal underworld, drawing her straight towards the same mafias now circling the stolen Caravaggio.
As her investigation crashes straight into Benjamin’s, they find themselves at the centre of something far darker than either imagined.
Art, money, football, murder, mafia – Madrid was never going to keep them apart.
The Madrid Connection is a fast, gripping and darkly funny page-turner - the perfect sequel to The Barcelona Connection .
The Barcelona Connection - Research & development for the screen‘The Barcelona Connection’ is in development for the screen, and I hope I will be able to post further news about this here in due course.
Research: In my weekly ‘Letter from Spain’ from #7 right up to #42, I included notes about all the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection. Many of the posts include photos and descriptions of locations that appear in the book, from Nîmes, Figueres, Cadaqués, La Bisbal d’Empordà and, of course, many areas of Barcelona. There are also posts about Salvador Dalí’s Hallucinogenic Toreador and ‘The Face’, the Dalí Museum in Figueres, the Picasso Museum and MNAC in Barcelona, even Girona Airport and nearby motorway service station - as well as the G20 Spouse Party, museum visits and ‘art attacks’. I hope the notes about the research are of interest … and I hope you might buy, read and take The Barcelona Connection with you to some of the locations that appear in the book! If you do, please send me a photo and I’ll post it here …
The Barcelona Connection - Book & ReviewsA murder. A kidnapping. A lost Salvador Dalí painting. Just 36 hours to resolve all three. Every crime scene is a work of art …
Benjamin Blake is no ordinary detective. Specialising in the criminal underworld of stolen and forged art, things don’t always go the right way for Benjamin. But when they don’t, he has a stubborn determination to put them right.
Within hours of being sent to Barcelona to authenticate a possible Salvador Dalí painting, Benjamin is left stranded without his cell phone at a service station alongside a bloody corpse in the early hours of the morning, after being savagely attacked with his hire car stolen, together with the painting.
Helped and hindered by the fiery Elena Carmona, pursued by a psychopathic hitman, Benjamin becomes the prime suspect in a politically motivated kidnap and murder. All this on the eve of Barcelona hosting a G20 summit and UN climate change conference, with the police in hot pursuit fearing a wider terrorist threat.
From Nîmes in the South of France, across the border to the sweltering humidity of Girona, Barcelona, Figueres and Cadaqués, The Barcelona Connection is a fast-paced, gripping page-turner sprinkled with black comedy, blending the real with the surreal, art crime and mistaken identity … and where the clues at the crime scene might just be the mirror image of a long-lost work of art …
If you can’t locate a copy of The Barcelona Connection in your local store, it can be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBNnumber: 978-1-7393326-1-7.
It is also available in print or as an eBook via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from.
Click here for the latest reviews on Amazon and on Goodreads.
A review by Michael Eaude of The Barcelona Connection was published in the October 2023 edition of Catalonia Today.
‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’
‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’
A review by Dominic Begg of The Barcelona Connection was published in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.
‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’
‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’
Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.
‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’
‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’
Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.
A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid - Book & ReviewsEighteen years since it was originally published, ‘A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid’ has been re-issued with a new introduction, new cover and five extra chapters that were cut from the original book.
It is available in print and as an eBook worldwide, in both formats. You can also order the new paperback or digital edition via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or the digital version on Apple, Kobo, Smashwords, or on many other platforms by clicking here.
If you’ve never read the book, I hope you will now acquire a copy and laugh out loud. If you did read and enjoy the original edition, I think you’ll love this new edition with additional chapters! More details about the book and links to many reviews are below.
As with previous posts showing images and locations that form part of the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection novel (above), I am also planning to publish an archive of photos here of Madrid that relate to many chapters in ‘A Load of Bull’ - although it will take time! In Letter from Spain #52, I cover Chapter 1 - the Centro Colón aparthotel (entrance) Watch this space for further images …
A LOAD OF BULL - An Englishman’s Adventures in MadridThe hilarious true story of an Englishman sent to Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue …
In the late eighties Tim Parfitt blagged his way into a job at Condé Nast in London and from there into a six week stint in Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue. Six weeks turned into nine years, and helping out turned into running the company. Along the way, Tim Parfitt discovered the real ‘real’ Spain. He never saw a Costa and he certainly never bought an olive grove. Instead, he discovered a booming city in hedonistic reaction to years of fascism, where sleep was something you only did at work and where five hour lunches invariably involved a course of bull’s testicles.
Tim Parfitt’s rise from unwanted guest to paparazzi-pursued mover in Spain’s glamorous social scene is a hilarious comedy of errors. Frothing with a language designed to make foreigners dribble, hospitalised by tapa-induced flatulence and constantly frustrated by the unapproachable beauty of the women parading through the Vogue offices, he nevertheless falls in love with a city, a country and its people - despite the fact he hasn’t a clue what they’re on about.
You can click here for all the reviews of A Load of Bull on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads.
Links to newspaper and magazine reviews:
‘A hugely entertaining memoir ... frequently laugh-out-loud funny.’ (The Daily Express)
‘Parfitt is no ordinary Englishman … his light touch and neat line in self-deprecating humour perfectly suits this entertaining urban spin on the old tale of Brits having fun under the Spanish sun.’ (The Sunday Times)
‘A love letter to Madrid ... brilliantly captures a truly eccentric and hedonistic place.’ (The Daily Mirror)
‘Often hilarious ... a side-splittingly funny travel memoir.’ (BBC Online)
‘Vivid yet affectionate … fascinating, escapist stuff.’ (OK! Magazine)
‘Magnificent ... brilliant and moving, hilarious and truthful.’ (La Vanguardia)
‘Don’t miss it … Madrid through the eyes of an Englishman.’ (Vogue España)
Spanish editionA Load of Bull was also published in Spanish under the title, Mucho Toro - las tribulaciones de un inglés en la movida. Click here or on image below for the current eBook version.
Contact DetailsYou can email me at: tim.parfitt@hotmail.co.uk
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February 9, 2026
Letter from Spain #72
This week, I’m just going to update my thoughts on the Best Picture category of the Oscars.
Since last week’s post, I’ve watched Frankenstein and Sinners - which means I’ve now seen six of the 10 movies nominated for the top award. Four to go, including Hamnet, which could sway everything.
Firstly, I really do admire anyone who can write, direct and get a film produced - let alone have it nominated for any award - so my opinion about any film is just my opinion (obviously). But for what it’s worth, here’s my view on Frankenstein …
Well, Frankenstein is not my type of genre.
I’m not a fan of fantasy (or sci-fi). Years ago, I walked out of one of those Lord of the Rings or Hobbit jobs after 30 minutes, leaving one of my sons to enjoy it with all his friends on his birthday while I spent the time in a nearby bar. Same thing happened (same bar, too) with a different son and one of the Harry Potter films. Goblins, elves, gremlins, hairy wizards … not my thing.
I’ve never seen any of the Star Wars movies because I have no interest in them at all - and I always loathed Dr.Who and Star Trek on TV as a kid. I’m not a spaceship or ‘time travel’ fan - but that’s not to say I dislike the ‘unknown’ or ‘supernatural’ genre.
I loved Close Encounters of the Third Kind - and Aliens (because my talented brother-in-law is Lieutenant Gorman) - and I also like it when this genre doesn’t take itself seriously. I loved ET, for example.
But Frankenstein … ?
I don’t know what to say. It took me two nights to watch it on Netflix. I had to force myself to continue with it on the second night. It started okay … the opening scenes were very good … but then I just thought that it got very … silly. And too Disney-ish. I laughed at a couple of moments that weren’t supposed to be funny at all.
Should it get the Best Picture Award at the Oscars? No. Should Jacob Elordi get an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role? No, I don’t think so - not being up against Sean Penn or Stellan Skarsgard in One Battle after Another and Sentimental Value.
What I did end up enjoying - more than the film itself - was the 40-minute documentary on Netflix about the making of Frankenstein, which I was prompted to watch immediately after. That was fascinating. My guess is that the movie will probably get its awards for Costume Design, and probably Make Up / Hair.
Okay, here we go … Sinners.
WTF?
I know I’m late to this party. Sinners landed in theatres across the USA last Easter and soon became the highest grossing original film in the past 15 years, and the 10th-highest-grossing R-rated film of all time. It’s already made over $370m for Warner Bros at the box-office alone, and on a $90m budget.
I sat down to watch it in good faith. I really did. We even invited a couple of friends round to make it a ‘movie night’. Tapas, wine, log fire, phones on silent … no talking if possible until after the movie (but that was impossible in the end).
I’d heard a lot about the film beforehand and was open to being challenged, provoked, unsettled, even enlightened. Instead, I emerged two hours and 17 minutes later, thinking: what a load of crap.
I freely admit that I might be the problem. You’re probably thinking the same by now. I can hear you mumbling as you unsubscribe from me here on Substack: ‘He’s just an old fart who’s never seen Star Wars and walked out of The Hobbit and Harry Potter on his poor sons’ birthdays …’
Sinners might be one of the highest grossing original films of all time, but it’s also one of the most over-praised and over-hyped movies of all time. In my opinion.
I’m not saying Hollywood has lost the plot. Warner Bros obviously hasn’t. Not if they can take that risk and make that profit.
Set in the Deep South during the Great Depression, Sinners follows the Smokestack Twins, both played by Michael B. Jordan, the Black Panther director Ryan Coogler’s frequent collaborator. Great talent combined … but either something went wildly over my head (it’s possible), or I’m out of touch. Or both.
How is it possible that this film has been nominated for 16 Oscars? Seriously?
I’ve got nothing against horror or vampire movies. In my hometown here, we have the annual Sitges Film Festival dedicated mainly to that genre … but I’ve walked out of some better films that Sinners over the years.
Sinners is a vampire movie.
The critics claim Sinners uses its vampires as a ‘cultural metaphor’, allowing the movie to explore several ‘historical themes’.
No, Sinners is just a vampire movie.
Sinners is also mediocre, at best. It’s a mediocre vampire movie, in which - without really spoiling anything - you have to wait until the last third of the film for any of the gory vampire bits. And that is probably the only thing that’s really clever about it - because it doesn’t stick to the rules of one particular genre. In that sense, it’s bold and original. For the first half, it is pretty much a realistic period adventure. Then it gets weird. Some of the characters’ eyeballs go red and then the biting starts and the blood squirts from their necks and it becomes a crazy bloodbath. But why? What’s the story? You tell me.
There are some good scenes - and there’s some great music, for sure - but it’s not worthy of 16 Oscar nominations. 16?
‘At a time when Black heritage and culture are once again under intense political assault’, Sinners provoked ‘zeitgeist-y discourse around Black history, cultural erasure and entertainment industry politics’ according to The Guardian. Yeah, right …
I don’t only watch movies for entertainment, or to be taken to another world for a couple of hours. But I don’t always need a history lesson or sermon, either … and especially not from a vampire flick.
All these deep complex metaphors that they claim Sinners is about … ‘tackling real-world issues’ … ‘portraying immigrant culture through spiritual liberation, religion and colonialism, where biblical symbolism shows vampirism as a metaphor for inherent exploitation and blues music through resistance and resurrection’ … give me a break.
It’s a mediocre vampire movie that has made tons of dosh at the box-office. Best of luck to it … congratulations to all concerned … but it is not a ‘masterpiece’.
It is not ‘one of the best films of this generation’ (box-office aside), or ‘the best of the decade’, or a film that ‘defines this era’.
So … from what I have seen so far, this is my Best Picture list order updated:
One Battle After Another
Marty Supreme
Sentimental Value
Train Dreams
Sinners
Frankenstein
Still to watch: Bugonia, F1, Hamnet and The Secret Agent before 16 March.
For those who are interested …The Madrid Connection - Research & Images
After The Barcelona Connection was published in April 2023, I started to post images and notes in this Substack blog about my research for the novel, especially about Salvador Dalí and many of the locations that appear in the book - from Nîmes to Barcelona, with Figueres, Cadaqués, Púbol, La Bisbal and even Girona airport in between. Links to all those posts can be found below.
I am now doing the same with The Madrid Connection - just for those who might be interested!
Past posts on research and images for the book:
Letter from Spain #71 - Prologue, and the ‘Prado by Night’.
Letter from Spain #70 - time spent in the Prado Museum ‘casing the joint’.
In my next post I’ll put some notes and images that relate to Chapter 1 that takes place in the Casa del Campo and then also in the streets surrounding the Italian Embassy in Madrid.
A bit about me: on and off, I have worked in the media in Spain for some 30 years (click here for more info). Currently, in addition to writing my books set in Spain and developing them for the screen (see below), I also chat briefly on most Wednesday mornings to Giles Brown on Talk Radio Europe about the latest news from Spain.
Books, Reviews, Research, News & EventsOn Friday 17 April at 8pm I am going to be presenting The Madrid Connection in the wonderful Secret Kingdoms Bookshop in Madrid, alongside Ann Bateson. It’s a free event (with refreshments), but as places are limited the bookshop requests you buy a €3 voucher redeemable at the event. Please come along if you are in Madrid at that time - it would be great to see you there! Here’s a link to reserve a place, or click on the image below.
The Madrid ConnectionPublished on 26 Nov 2025, The Madrid Connection is a standalone crime-thriller, but also a sequel to The Barcelona Connection (see below).
Here’s the back cover blurb from The Madrid Connection:
Of all the paintings in all the galleries in all of Madrid.
They chose a Caravaggio.
And they chose last night.
On the night Madrid hosts the Champions League Final, disaster erupts at the Prado Museum: a guard is murdered and a Caravaggio is stolen.
British art detective Benjamin Blake, hoping for a quiet few days in the city on a low-key assignment, instead finds himself dragged into the chaos he swore to avoid.
Suddenly he’s the investigation’s uninvited headache – and possibly its key.
Rival mafias begin circling. The Asians want him gone. The Italians want him alive – at least for now.
As the cultural bureaucrats drag him into the case to deflect from their own failings, Madrid’s homicide chief – choking on his own lies – wants him nowhere near the case, let alone the truth.
Across the city, journalist Elena Carmona is in Madrid on a separate assignment, digging into the poison of racism in football – an evil that opens into a far wider conspiracy.
Trafficking, exploitation and revenge run beneath the pitch and deep into the criminal underworld, drawing her straight towards the same mafias now circling the stolen Caravaggio.
As her investigation crashes straight into Benjamin’s, they find themselves at the centre of something far darker than either imagined.
Art, money, football, murder, mafia – Madrid was never going to keep them apart.
The Madrid Connection is a fast, gripping and darkly funny page-turner - the perfect sequel to The Barcelona Connection .
The Barcelona Connection - Research & development for the screen‘The Barcelona Connection’ is in development for the screen, and I hope I will be able to post further news about this here in due course.
Research: In my weekly ‘Letter from Spain’ from #7 right up to #42, I included notes about all the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection. Many of the posts include photos and descriptions of locations that appear in the book, from Nîmes, Figueres, Cadaqués, La Bisbal d’Empordà and, of course, many areas of Barcelona. There are also posts about Salvador Dalí’s Hallucinogenic Toreador and ‘The Face’, the Dalí Museum in Figueres, the Picasso Museum and MNAC in Barcelona, even Girona Airport and nearby motorway service station - as well as the G20 Spouse Party, museum visits and ‘art attacks’. I hope the notes about the research are of interest … and I hope you might buy, read and take The Barcelona Connection with you to some of the locations that appear in the book! If you do, please send me a photo and I’ll post it here …
The Barcelona Connection - Book & ReviewsA murder. A kidnapping. A lost Salvador Dalí painting. Just 36 hours to resolve all three. Every crime scene is a work of art …
Benjamin Blake is no ordinary detective. Specialising in the criminal underworld of stolen and forged art, things don’t always go the right way for Benjamin. But when they don’t, he has a stubborn determination to put them right.
Within hours of being sent to Barcelona to authenticate a possible Salvador Dalí painting, Benjamin is left stranded without his cell phone at a service station alongside a bloody corpse in the early hours of the morning, after being savagely attacked with his hire car stolen, together with the painting.
Helped and hindered by the fiery Elena Carmona, pursued by a psychopathic hitman, Benjamin becomes the prime suspect in a politically motivated kidnap and murder. All this on the eve of Barcelona hosting a G20 summit and UN climate change conference, with the police in hot pursuit fearing a wider terrorist threat.
From Nîmes in the South of France, across the border to the sweltering humidity of Girona, Barcelona, Figueres and Cadaqués, The Barcelona Connection is a fast-paced, gripping page-turner sprinkled with black comedy, blending the real with the surreal, art crime and mistaken identity … and where the clues at the crime scene might just be the mirror image of a long-lost work of art …
If you can’t locate a copy of The Barcelona Connection in your local store, it can be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBNnumber: 978-1-7393326-1-7.
It is also available in print or as an eBook via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from.
Click here for the latest reviews on Amazon and on Goodreads.
A review by Michael Eaude of The Barcelona Connection was published in the October 2023 edition of Catalonia Today.
‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’
‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’
A review by Dominic Begg of The Barcelona Connection was published in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.
‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’
‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’
Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.
‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’
‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’
Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.
A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid - Book & ReviewsEighteen years since it was originally published, ‘A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid’ has been re-issued with a new introduction, new cover and five extra chapters that were cut from the original book.
It is available in print and as an eBook worldwide, in both formats. You can also order the new paperback or digital edition via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or the digital version on Apple, Kobo, Smashwords, or on many other platforms by clicking here.
If you’ve never read the book, I hope you will now acquire a copy and laugh out loud. If you did read and enjoy the original edition, I think you’ll love this new edition with additional chapters! More details about the book and links to many reviews are below.
As with previous posts showing images and locations that form part of the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection novel (above), I am also planning to publish an archive of photos here of Madrid that relate to many chapters in ‘A Load of Bull’ - although it will take time! In Letter from Spain #52, I cover Chapter 1 - the Centro Colón aparthotel (entrance) Watch this space for further images …
A LOAD OF BULL - An Englishman’s Adventures in MadridThe hilarious true story of an Englishman sent to Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue …
In the late eighties Tim Parfitt blagged his way into a job at Condé Nast in London and from there into a six week stint in Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue. Six weeks turned into nine years, and helping out turned into running the company. Along the way, Tim Parfitt discovered the real ‘real’ Spain. He never saw a Costa and he certainly never bought an olive grove. Instead, he discovered a booming city in hedonistic reaction to years of fascism, where sleep was something you only did at work and where five hour lunches invariably involved a course of bull’s testicles.
Tim Parfitt’s rise from unwanted guest to paparazzi-pursued mover in Spain’s glamorous social scene is a hilarious comedy of errors. Frothing with a language designed to make foreigners dribble, hospitalised by tapa-induced flatulence and constantly frustrated by the unapproachable beauty of the women parading through the Vogue offices, he nevertheless falls in love with a city, a country and its people - despite the fact he hasn’t a clue what they’re on about.
You can click here for all the reviews of A Load of Bull on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads.
Links to newspaper and magazine reviews:
‘A hugely entertaining memoir ... frequently laugh-out-loud funny.’ (The Daily Express)
‘Parfitt is no ordinary Englishman … his light touch and neat line in self-deprecating humour perfectly suits this entertaining urban spin on the old tale of Brits having fun under the Spanish sun.’ (The Sunday Times)
‘A love letter to Madrid ... brilliantly captures a truly eccentric and hedonistic place.’ (The Daily Mirror)
‘Often hilarious ... a side-splittingly funny travel memoir.’ (BBC Online)
‘Vivid yet affectionate … fascinating, escapist stuff.’ (OK! Magazine)
‘Magnificent ... brilliant and moving, hilarious and truthful.’ (La Vanguardia)
‘Don’t miss it … Madrid through the eyes of an Englishman.’ (Vogue España)
Spanish editionA Load of Bull was also published in Spanish under the title, Mucho Toro - las tribulaciones de un inglés en la movida. Click here or on image below for the current eBook version.
Contact DetailsYou can email me at: tim.parfitt@hotmail.co.uk
Thanks for reading Letter from Spain! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
February 2, 2026
Letter from Spain #71
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez told Elon Musk to f*ck off last Wednesday. He didn’t actually use that term, but I bet he was thinking it. Whenever I think of Musk, I also think f*ck off.
Elon-effing-Musk had posted one of his ‘Wow’ comments on X, which he owns, while sharing some far-right bullshit that described the Spanish government’s plan to grant legal status to around 500,000 undocumented migrants as ‘electoral engineering’.
‘Spain just legalised 500,000 illegal aliens to “defeat the far-right”,’ a far-right ‘influencer’ called Ian Miles Cheong wrote.
‘It’s not even a secret anymore,’ he went on. ‘By legalising 500,000 illegals under the guise of defeating the far-right, Pedro Sánchez is essentially dropping the mask. This is electoral engineering. The logic is simple: legalise half a million people, fast-track them to citizenship (which takes as little as two years for many), and you’ve effectively imported a massive, loyal voting bloc that’s indebted to the left.’
‘Wow,’ said Elon-effing-Musk … who’s also the founder of aerospace firm SpaceX, all part of his long-term ambition to send humans to Mars …
‘F*ck off,’ thought Sánchez (I’m absolutely certain of it). But then he wrote this response to Musk instead: ‘Mars can wait. Humanity can’t.’
It’s one of the reasons I admire Sánchez (he’s stood up to Trump more than anyone else, too) and one of the many reasons to add to the long list of why I love living in Spain.
I’d rather live in a country that plans to legalise 500,000 people (some of who possibly risked their lives trying to get here), than a country that sends ICE thugs to murder innocent citizens protesting against their own government’s immigration policies.
Here are the facts:
Yes, Sánchez’s left-leaning coalition government is planning a decree to allow up to 500,000 undocumented migrants to regularise their status, marking a clear departure from the tougher migration policies adopted in other parts of Europe.
This regularisation will apply to migrants who have been resident in Spain for at least five months and who submitted applications for international protection before 31 December 2025. If they have no criminal record, they can apply for a renewable one-year residency permit. Based on data regarding the main nationalities of foreign arrivals over the last two years, it appears that the majority of beneficiaries will come from Latin America.
Sánchez has repeatedly argued that immigration has strengthened Spain’s economic growth and increased public revenues. With Spain grappling with an ageing population and a persistently low birth rate, he says migrants play a crucial role in supporting the labour market and safeguarding the pension system. The figures suggest he is right. The country’s economy grew by 2.8% last year, more than double the average growth forecast for the eurozone.
According to Sánchez, migration has driven around 80% of Spain’s economic expansion over the past six years and now contributes roughly 10% of social security income.
‘Spain will continue to defend a migration model that works, one that works for Spain and could also help awaken an ageing Europe,’ the socialist (PSOE) leader said while addressing a meeting of Spanish ambassadors in Madrid last month.
Now … as effing-Musk suggests, is granting legal status to 500,000 ‘illegal aliens’ electoral engineering?
No, it isn’t.
They’ve been trying to say that Sánchez is looking for votes in the next general election that must be held in Spain before 22 August 2027. But guess what? None of these ‘illegal aliens’ will be allowed to vote in that election.
The electoral law states that Spanish citizens of legal age, registered in the electoral census, have the right to vote. To do so, though, one must hold Spanish nationality, a process entirely different from regularisation, which does not confer nationality.
Once people acquire legal residency (regularisation) in Spain – which in itself can sometimes take years bogged down in the application process – it allows them to participate in municipal / town elections, but only if their country has an agreement with Spain.
If migrants are from Latin America, the Philippines or Equatorial Guinea, they would be able to apply for Spanish citizenship after living legally in Spain for two years, which would then allow them to participate in all elections.
However, having residency in Spain is not the only requirement for later obtaining Spanish citizenship, even if someone wants to apply. There are many other requirements. The minimum waiting period is also not two years for all applicants.
Many migrants with residency never apply for Spanish citizenship because, in most cases, it implies renouncing their original citizenship. It’s true: I have never applied for Spanish citizenship because I don’t want to give up my British passport. I can vote in my home town’s elections, but I can’t vote in the Catalan regional elections or in Spain’s general elections.
What about Spain’s social services being overwhelmed? What about the ‘pull effect’?
Obviously the opposition parties in Spain - the right-wing People’s Party (PP) and the far-right Vox lot - have strongly criticised the government’s plan to grant legal status to half-a-million undocumented migrants … but now let’s look at their main arguments.
Firstly, this isn’t just the socialist-led government of Sánchez doing this. I mean, it’s been done before. Two ‘extraordinary regularisations’ of this kind were previously initiated by the PP itself (in 2000 and 2001) and another four were carried out by the PSOE (in 1986, 1991, 1996 and 2005).
The PP has said that this regularisation could overwhelm social services. Is this true?
No, it’s not true. The people who will be eligible for regularisation have already been living and even working undocumented in Spain for more than five months (as explained above). Therefore, these migrants are already here; they could already be using municipal services and healthcare. They were already consuming products and paying taxes on them, but their lack of documentation prevents them from contributing to social security.
To put it simply, they’ve probably been paid in cash (if paid at all) for whatever they’ve been doing here. The measure could bring around 500,000 people into the system, which will have a direct impact on the economy.
Vox - of course - warn that the mass regularisation will act as a magnet for further illegal immigration. Will it?
No, I don’t think it will. People arriving from now on don’t meet the requirements and would not be able to automatically regularise their status. Reports also illustrate that there’s no evidence that these measures created a ‘pull factor’ after previous regularisation processes.
The facts and figures show that Spain is still maintaining controls against irregular entry (despite the far-right saying otherwise) while also promoting regulated, legal immigration.
It’s true that irregular/illegal arrivals in the Balearic Islands rose in 2025, where most crossings originate from Algeria. But overall in 2025 illegal migration to Spain dropped sharply, with arrivals falling by more than 40%, driven mainly by a steep decline in crossings from West Africa to the Canary Islands (which fell by 62%). And that’s because Spain also signed cooperation agreements with several African countries that are major sources of illegal migration, aimed at dismantling people-smuggling networks.
Sánchez himself has repeatedly argued that reducing illegal migration requires tackling the issue before migrants set off.
He’s right … but does this stop the likes of Elon-effing-Musk and co spreading their bullshit?
Wow, no.
‘The tyrant Sánchez hates the Spanish people,’ Vox leader Santiago Abascal ranted on Musk’s X. ‘He wants to replace them. That’s why he intends to create a pull factor by decree, to accelerate the invasion. He must be stopped. Repatriations, deportations, and remigration.’
Update on the Oscars watchlist …Further to my post last week about trying to watch as many of the films nominated in the Best Picture category before the Oscars, we went to see Marty Supreme on Friday.
What can I say? It was noisy. It was a wild, screwball nightmare, to be honest. Many moments were simply absurd.
Timothée Chalamet is a great actor - clearly. But I didn’t warm to his character Marty Mauser at all. In fact I hated him, so I didn’t care what happened to him. The bathtub and dog scene was terrific - but then the plot continuing with the dog was just too much. I felt exhausted by the end of the movie, and I was pleased once it was over.
So … does it deserve the Best Picture award? Not for me. Best Actor? Chalamet will probably get it, but I preferred DiCaprio in One Battle After Another.
From what I have seen so far, this is my Best Picture list order:
One Battle After Another
Marty Supreme
Sentimental Value
Train Dreams
Still to watch: Sinners and Frankenstein this week - then somehow Bugonia, F1, Hamnet and The Secret Agent to watch before 16 March.
For those who are interested …The Madrid Connection - Research & Images (2)
After The Barcelona Connection was published in April 2023, I started to post images and notes in this Substack blog about my research for the novel, especially about Salvador Dalí and many of the locations that appear in the book - from Nîmes to Barcelona, with Figueres, Cadaqués, Púbol, La Bisbal and even Girona airport in between. Links to all those posts can be found below.
I am now doing the same with The Madrid Connection - just for those who might be interested!
In last week’s post, I mentioned about my time spent in the Prado Museum in Madrid (where the story in the book starts), somewhat amazed that I hadn’t been arrested while casing the joint.
The Prologue of The Madrid Connection starts with a ‘Prado by Night’ event. These are normally public events and free. I think during 2025 the museum opened its doors for free on the first Saturday of most months, from 8.30pm to 11.30pm. In my novel, however, it is a private event for patrons, sponsors, suppliers and ‘friends of the museum’.
As I wrote last week, I lost count of how many times I visited the museum - and specifically Rooms 2 through to 7A - making notes on the ‘floor plans’ that I collected. These visits were not ‘Prado by Night’ events; they were simply the ‘free access’ periods that the museum offers: from 6-8pm, Mon-Sat, and from 5-7pm on Sundays. I used to turn up just before 6pm and join the back of a long queue outside, thinking that I’d never get in - but the queue always moved quite quickly from 6pm onwards.
Anyway, in the book’s Prologue I have two characters following the same path I often followed through the museum, leading to Rooms 7 and 7A on the first floor, where a Caravaggio painting hangs on the far wall. This painting is not named in the Prologue, but because it’s on the front cover of the book, I might as well do so here.
It is David and Goliath - yet the Prado call it two different names: in English, David with the Head of Goliath - and Spanish, David vencedor de Goliat (David triumphant over Goliath). It is the only painting by Caravaggio in the Prado. It is also one of three versions of David and Goliath that Caravaggio painted; the other two are in Vienna and Rome.
Here’s an anecdote. The first time I went to the Prado in search of this painting - already knowing that I wanted to use it in my book, I reached the gallery where it was supposed to be and instead found an empty space on the wall. It was missing. Stolen? No, the guard told me it was undergoing restoration work. But for me, that was a good sign - a message!
The painting is now in Room 7A, but it wasn’t always there. It used to be in Room 6, and it was moved to another room when the museum held a temporary exhibition of Ecce Homo, ‘the lost Caravaggio’ that also gets a mention in the book.
In the adjacent Rooms 2 - 6, there are five sets of double French window doors, four of which overlook a courtyard just one floor below - the ground floor - where there’s an outdoor Café Prado alongside the main entrance to the museum (more on this Café Prado in future posts). Every time I went to Rooms 2 - 6, the wooden shutters on the French windows were open, and there was only one steel bar that could be fixed to the base of each set of doors, yet leaving the glass windows without any bars across them.
I once asked a female guard if they closed the wooden shutters at night. She looked at me suspiciously, but then smiled and told me that she didn’t know for certain as she wasn’t the ‘last to leave’ the gallery - but she didn’t think that they did.
I became quite obsessed with these French window doors with their ‘Juliet balconies’ while researching the book. Their proximity not only to the priceless paintings that hung just inside (including the Caravaggio), but the almost touching distance to anyone at the Café Prado outside …
Here you have some text from the Prologue and just a few of the many images I took during my research …
Next week I’ll post some notes and images of the Chapter 1 research and my experience of the Casa del Campo, plus the Italian Embassy in Madrid.
PS … you can purchase The Madrid Connection here (and The Barcelona Connection here) … or you can simply order them from your local bookshop … ;)
At night, the Prado Museum in Madrid belongs to the paintings. Once the public has gone, the museum sinks into a heavier stillness; the galleries feel older, and they seem to watch each other in a private, unbroken vigil.
On this night, however, that hush was fractured by the soft chatter of a reception in the Goya rotunda – a sound that thinned as a young man stepped away from the main crowd, a silent authority pacing one step behind to keep him on the path already chosen for him.
This season’s first invitation-only ‘Prado by Night’ event was a modest affair – a scattering of patrons, sponsors, suppliers and Amigos del Museo mingling in one of the main galleries – but it was enough. It was meant to strengthen relationships, mark another year of working together. For most guests, it was about the wine and the canapés – with the occasional selfie, angled carefully to avoid the paintings, as museum rules required. For them, it meant the opposite – slipping clear of the small talk, away from the glassy smiles. It meant space to walk, to look, to move without questions.
They eased away from the laughter and the clink of glasses, drifting into the quieter wings, through the half-empty galleries that had been opened for the night. Italian Renaissance portraits glowed under the warm lights, Flemish paintings hung in sombre rows, the Spanish masters held court with their saints and kings.
By the time they came to the rooms displaying Italian Baroque, the air felt cooler, as if the museum had closed itself around them. They turned a corner into another gallery. The figure behind him slowed, giving the faintest nod towards the wall ahead …
… He didn’t answer. But in his head, he was already mapping it out – one floor up, the painting so close to the tall French doors, their pale, canvas-like screens filtering the streetlights and the night beyond into a ghostly blur. No shutters. No grill. Glass not too thick.
A bit about me: on and off, I have worked in the media in Spain for some 30 years (click here for more info). Currently, in addition to writing my books set in Spain and developing them for the screen (see below), I also chat briefly on most Wednesday mornings to Giles Brown on Talk Radio Europe about the latest news from Spain.
Books, Reviews, Research, News & EventsThanks to everyone who made it along to the Come In Bookshop event in Barcelona last Tuesday!
Here’s another date for the diary: on FRIDAY 17 APRIL I am going to be presenting The Madrid Connection in the Secret Kingdoms Bookshop in Madrid. More details to follow in due course.
The Madrid ConnectionPast posts on research and images for the book:
Letter from Spain #70 - time spent in the Prado Museum ‘casing the joint’.
Published on 26 Nov 2025, The Madrid Connection is a standalone crime-thriller, but also a sequel to The Barcelona Connection (see below).
Here’s the back cover blurb from The Madrid Connection:
Of all the paintings in all the galleries in all of Madrid.
They chose a Caravaggio.
And they chose last night.
On the night Madrid hosts the Champions League Final, disaster erupts at the Prado Museum: a guard is murdered and a Caravaggio is stolen.
British art detective Benjamin Blake, hoping for a quiet few days in the city on a low-key assignment, instead finds himself dragged into the chaos he swore to avoid.
Suddenly he’s the investigation’s uninvited headache – and possibly its key.
Rival mafias begin circling. The Asians want him gone. The Italians want him alive – at least for now.
As the cultural bureaucrats drag him into the case to deflect from their own failings, Madrid’s homicide chief – choking on his own lies – wants him nowhere near the case, let alone the truth.
Across the city, journalist Elena Carmona is in Madrid on a separate assignment, digging into the poison of racism in football – an evil that opens into a far wider conspiracy.
Trafficking, exploitation and revenge run beneath the pitch and deep into the criminal underworld, drawing her straight towards the same mafias now circling the stolen Caravaggio.
As her investigation crashes straight into Benjamin’s, they find themselves at the centre of something far darker than either imagined.
Art, money, football, murder, mafia – Madrid was never going to keep them apart.
The Madrid Connection is a fast, gripping and darkly funny page-turner - the perfect sequel to The Barcelona Connection .
The Barcelona Connection - Research & development for the screen‘The Barcelona Connection’ is in development for the screen, and I hope I will be able to post further news about this here in due course.
Research: In my weekly ‘Letter from Spain’ from #7 right up to #42, I included notes about all the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection. Many of the posts include photos and descriptions of locations that appear in the book, from Nîmes, Figueres, Cadaqués, La Bisbal d’Empordà and, of course, many areas of Barcelona. There are also posts about Salvador Dalí’s Hallucinogenic Toreador and ‘The Face’, the Dalí Museum in Figueres, the Picasso Museum and MNAC in Barcelona, even Girona Airport and nearby motorway service station - as well as the G20 Spouse Party, museum visits and ‘art attacks’. I hope the notes about the research are of interest … and I hope you might buy, read and take The Barcelona Connection with you to some of the locations that appear in the book! If you do, please send me a photo and I’ll post it here …
The Barcelona Connection - Book & ReviewsA murder. A kidnapping. A lost Salvador Dalí painting. Just 36 hours to resolve all three. Every crime scene is a work of art …
Benjamin Blake is no ordinary detective. Specialising in the criminal underworld of stolen and forged art, things don’t always go the right way for Benjamin. But when they don’t, he has a stubborn determination to put them right.
Within hours of being sent to Barcelona to authenticate a possible Salvador Dalí painting, Benjamin is left stranded without his cell phone at a service station alongside a bloody corpse in the early hours of the morning, after being savagely attacked with his hire car stolen, together with the painting.
Helped and hindered by the fiery Elena Carmona, pursued by a psychopathic hitman, Benjamin becomes the prime suspect in a politically motivated kidnap and murder. All this on the eve of Barcelona hosting a G20 summit and UN climate change conference, with the police in hot pursuit fearing a wider terrorist threat.
From Nîmes in the South of France, across the border to the sweltering humidity of Girona, Barcelona, Figueres and Cadaqués, The Barcelona Connection is a fast-paced, gripping page-turner sprinkled with black comedy, blending the real with the surreal, art crime and mistaken identity … and where the clues at the crime scene might just be the mirror image of a long-lost work of art …
If you can’t locate a copy of The Barcelona Connection in your local store, it can be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBNnumber: 978-1-7393326-1-7.
It is also available in print or as an eBook via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from.
Click here for the latest reviews on Amazon and on Goodreads.
A review by Michael Eaude of The Barcelona Connection was published in the October 2023 edition of Catalonia Today.
‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’
‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’
A review by Dominic Begg of The Barcelona Connection was published in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.
‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’
‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’
Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.
‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’
‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’
Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.
A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid - Book & ReviewsEighteen years since it was originally published, ‘A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid’ has been re-issued with a new introduction, new cover and five extra chapters that were cut from the original book.
It is available in print and as an eBook worldwide, in both formats. You can also order the new paperback or digital edition via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or the digital version on Apple, Kobo, Smashwords, or on many other platforms by clicking here.
If you’ve never read the book, I hope you will now acquire a copy and laugh out loud. If you did read and enjoy the original edition, I think you’ll love this new edition with additional chapters! More details about the book and links to many reviews are below.
As with previous posts showing images and locations that form part of the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection novel (above), I am also planning to publish an archive of photos here of Madrid that relate to many chapters in ‘A Load of Bull’ - although it will take time! In Letter from Spain #52, I cover Chapter 1 - the Centro Colón aparthotel (entrance) Watch this space for further images …
A LOAD OF BULL - An Englishman’s Adventures in MadridThe hilarious true story of an Englishman sent to Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue …
In the late eighties Tim Parfitt blagged his way into a job at Condé Nast in London and from there into a six week stint in Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue. Six weeks turned into nine years, and helping out turned into running the company. Along the way, Tim Parfitt discovered the real ‘real’ Spain. He never saw a Costa and he certainly never bought an olive grove. Instead, he discovered a booming city in hedonistic reaction to years of fascism, where sleep was something you only did at work and where five hour lunches invariably involved a course of bull’s testicles.
Tim Parfitt’s rise from unwanted guest to paparazzi-pursued mover in Spain’s glamorous social scene is a hilarious comedy of errors. Frothing with a language designed to make foreigners dribble, hospitalised by tapa-induced flatulence and constantly frustrated by the unapproachable beauty of the women parading through the Vogue offices, he nevertheless falls in love with a city, a country and its people - despite the fact he hasn’t a clue what they’re on about.
You can click here for all the reviews of A Load of Bull on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads.
Links to newspaper and magazine reviews:
‘A hugely entertaining memoir ... frequently laugh-out-loud funny.’ (The Daily Express)
‘Parfitt is no ordinary Englishman … his light touch and neat line in self-deprecating humour perfectly suits this entertaining urban spin on the old tale of Brits having fun under the Spanish sun.’ (The Sunday Times)
‘A love letter to Madrid ... brilliantly captures a truly eccentric and hedonistic place.’ (The Daily Mirror)
‘Often hilarious ... a side-splittingly funny travel memoir.’ (BBC Online)
‘Vivid yet affectionate … fascinating, escapist stuff.’ (OK! Magazine)
‘Magnificent ... brilliant and moving, hilarious and truthful.’ (La Vanguardia)
‘Don’t miss it … Madrid through the eyes of an Englishman.’ (Vogue España)
Spanish editionA Load of Bull was also published in Spanish under the title, Mucho Toro - las tribulaciones de un inglés en la movida. Click here or on image below for the current eBook version.
Contact DetailsYou can email me at: tim.parfitt@hotmail.co.uk
Thanks for reading Letter from Spain! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
January 26, 2026
Letter from Spain #70
I didn’t need to catch a train in Catalonia over the weekend, which was a good thing as there weren’t any. The entire Rodalies commuter network (and regional trains) were suspended from 1pm on Saturday ‘until the safety of passengers could be guaranteed’.
Presumably passengers’ safety was finally guaranteed by 6am this morning (Monday), as that’s when the trains started running again, albeit ‘gradually’. Then at 6.30am they were suspended due to an ‘incident’. More exactly, an incident that took place at the Centralised Traffic Centre run by Spain’s rail infrastructure manager, Adif, which is based at the Estació de França in Barcelona.
Then … wait for it … just after 7am, it was announced that services would gradually restart again, but it was short-lived. Another incident hit the central control centre and, at 7.30am, all trains were suspended again … finally only running from around 8.15am, as far as I know. By then, many commuters had given up.
That’s what it’s like here at the moment. It’s chaos. It’s an embarrassment. It’s ‘third world’, according to the commuters who are suffering every day.
Adding to the chronic lack of investment in the Rodalies rail network, the collapse of a wall near Barcelona during last week’s storm that resulted in the death of a trainee train driver - all coming just days after the high-speed train tragedy in Andalusia that claimed 45 lives - everyone is now blaming everyone else. The three-day mourning period that I wrote about last week is well and truly over.
You know things are bad in Catalonia when you have Carles Puigdemont - the former Catalan president who fled to Belgium after the failed independence bid in October 2017 - saying that things were better when he was in charge.
The regional Catalan government has today called for resignations at RENFE (Spain’s national rail operator) and at Adif (the rail infrastructure manager). The Catalan Esquerra Republicana (ERC) party has called for the resignation of the central Spanish government’s Transport Minister, Óscar Puente - as have the right-wing PP and far-right Vox parties on a national level … but that’s really because they’re incapable and unwilling to hear his lengthy explanations and updates about the initial investigation of the Andalusian train tragedy. Right now, being transport minister in Spain has to be the worst job in the world.
Sometimes the news - and the weather (Storm sodding Ingrid now being followed by Storm effing Joseph) - is just so depressing that I have no desire to write about it or comment on it. But if you really want to hear more about the recent news in Spain, there’s an audio below of my latest chat on Talk Radio Europe about last week’s train tragedies.
As for the United States government … don’t get me started. Do they take us for fools? How dare they deny what is crystal clear from multiple videos taken by witnesses and verified by trusted media outlets? Those ICE ‘police’ in Minneapolis are nothing but killers - murderers. The US president … with his so-called ‘Board of Peace’ set to turn the Gaza Strip into a Trump Tower-style Riviera … has no ounce of credibility left. He’s vile, period.
So, let’s change the subject …
Let’s go from one extreme to another: the Oscars.
Every year, before the Oscar ceremony takes place, I aim to have watched as many of the films nominated in the Best Picture category as possible. Of the 10 films in the final list this year, I have so far seen only three: One Battle After Another (on Netflix), Sentimental Value (at the cinema) and Train Dreams (on Netflix). How many have you seen?
We’re off to the cinema this Friday to see Marty Supreme - then I have Sinners to watch on HBO and Frankenstein on Netflix - but that still leaves Bugonia, F1, Hamnet and The Secret Agent to watch somewhere before 16 March. Hopefully I’ll be able to do so - although I’m not too bothered about missing F1 …
Of the three movies in the Best Picture category I’ve seen so far, One Battle After Another wins hands down. I loved it. I thought it was a bit weird - the second half seemed like a different movie to the first half - but I still loved it. Both Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn are superb - both deserve Oscars in their categories.
Sentimental Value was … okay … but it was a bit slow. The cinematography was striking, but it hasn’t been nominated in that category. I didn’t see it as a ‘Best Picture’ movie. Watching it in its original Swedish (and half of it English) with Spanish subtitles didn’t help, I don’t think. But what I mean by that is that I felt it was more ‘Best International Film’ category … but maybe I’m wrong to think/write that. I think the lead actress, Renate Reinsve, was excellent - she deserves her nomination - but I don’t understand Elle Fanning getting a supporting actress nomination.
As for Train Dreams … I watched it on Netflix last night. I don’t really understand why it has been nominated as Best Picture at all.
For those who are interested …
The Madrid Connection - Research & Images (1)
After The Barcelona Connection was published in April 2023, I started to regularly post images and notes in this Substack blog about my research for the book, especially about Salvador Dalí and many of the locations that appear in the book - from Nîmes to Barcelona, with Figueres, Cadaqués, Púbol, La Bisbal and even Girona airport in between. Links to all those past posts can be found below.
I now intend to do the same with The Madrid Connection - again, just for those who might be interested!
To kick things off, you might want to read a previous Substack post about the time I spent in the Prado Museum in Madrid (where the story in the book starts), somewhat amazed that I hadn’t been arrested. In the acknowledgements of The Madrid Connection I also write this:
When I lived opposite the Prado Museum in Madrid during the late eighties, I used to plan how to rob it – for fictional reasons, of course. So, I think my research for this book started back then – 37 years ago.
Over the last two years, I lost count of how many times I ‘cased the joint’, specifically Rooms 2 through to 8A, as well as the outdoor Café Prado in the courtyard. A number of guards and other staff at the Prado always eyed me suspiciously, and they would have caught me staring up at their CCTV cameras and making detailed notes of their positions …
For fun - well, and to help promote the book! - I have even started to create short ‘teaser’ videos that will depict various chapters and/or passages in the book - and I will share them here over the coming weeks and also on Instagram (@tjparfitt) and TikTok (@tjpspain) - where you can also follow me.
I don’t really understand how TikTok works at all, but I’m learning! And if you know any ‘BookTok’ reviewers who might like to read any of my books - please let me know!
Next week, I’ll post some photos here that link to the ‘Prologue’ section in the book. In the meantime, here’s the first 14-second video I made last week to kick things off …
A bit about me: on and off, I have worked in the media in Spain for some 30 years (click here for more info). Currently, in addition to writing my books set in Spain and developing them for the screen (see below), I also chat briefly on Wednesday mornings to Giles Brown on Talk Radio Europe about the latest news from Spain. If you’re interested, here’s the chat we had last week - on Weds 21 Jan. There was only (and sadly) one topic: the train tragedy.
Books, Reviews, Research, News & EventsTo anyone in and around Barcelona, come along if you can to this ‘Chit-chat with Author’ event at the Come In English Bookshop on Tuesday 27 January (tomorrow!) at 6.30pm. You don’t need to have bought your copy of ‘The Madrid Connection’ from the shop - in fact you don’t need to have bought it from anywhere! We’re simply going to have fun chatting about it, and it would be great to see you there. The shop says it would be best to register via the QR code or via this link.
Another date for the diary: on FRIDAY 17 APRIL I am going to be presenting The Madrid Connection in the Secret Kingdoms Bookshop in Madrid. More details to follow in due course.
The Madrid ConnectionPublished on 26 November 2025, The Madrid Connection is a standalone crime-thriller, but also a sequel to The Barcelona Connection (see below).
Here’s the back cover blurb from The Madrid Connection:
Of all the paintings in all the galleries in all of Madrid.
They chose a Caravaggio.
And they chose last night.
On the night Madrid hosts the Champions League Final, disaster erupts at the Prado Museum: a guard is murdered and a Caravaggio is stolen.
British art detective Benjamin Blake, hoping for a quiet few days in the city on a low-key assignment, instead finds himself dragged into the chaos he swore to avoid.
Suddenly he’s the investigation’s uninvited headache – and possibly its key.
Rival mafias begin circling. The Asians want him gone. The Italians want him alive – at least for now.
As the cultural bureaucrats drag him into the case to deflect from their own failings, Madrid’s homicide chief – choking on his own lies – wants him nowhere near the case, let alone the truth.
Across the city, journalist Elena Carmona is in Madrid on a separate assignment, digging into the poison of racism in football – an evil that opens into a far wider conspiracy.
Trafficking, exploitation and revenge run beneath the pitch and deep into the criminal underworld, drawing her straight towards the same mafias now circling the stolen Caravaggio.
As her investigation crashes straight into Benjamin’s, they find themselves at the centre of something far darker than either imagined.
Art, money, football, murder, mafia – Madrid was never going to keep them apart.
The Madrid Connection is a fast, gripping and darkly funny page-turner - the perfect sequel to The Barcelona Connection .
The Barcelona Connection - Research & development for the screen‘The Barcelona Connection’ is in development for the screen, and I hope I will be able to post further news about this here in due course.
Research: In my weekly ‘Letter from Spain’ from #7 right up to #42, I included notes about all the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection. Many of the posts include photos and descriptions of locations that appear in the book, from Nîmes, Figueres, Cadaqués, La Bisbal d’Empordà and, of course, many areas of Barcelona. There are also posts about Salvador Dalí’s Hallucinogenic Toreador and ‘The Face’, the Dalí Museum in Figueres, the Picasso Museum and MNAC in Barcelona, even Girona Airport and nearby motorway service station - as well as the G20 Spouse Party, museum visits and ‘art attacks’. I hope the notes about the research are of interest … and I hope you might buy, read and take The Barcelona Connection with you to some of the locations that appear in the book! If you do, please send me a photo and I’ll post it here …
The Barcelona Connection - Book & ReviewsA murder. A kidnapping. A lost Salvador Dalí painting. Just 36 hours to resolve all three. Every crime scene is a work of art …
Benjamin Blake is no ordinary detective. Specialising in the criminal underworld of stolen and forged art, things don’t always go the right way for Benjamin. But when they don’t, he has a stubborn determination to put them right.
Within hours of being sent to Barcelona to authenticate a possible Salvador Dalí painting, Benjamin is left stranded without his cell phone at a service station alongside a bloody corpse in the early hours of the morning, after being savagely attacked with his hire car stolen, together with the painting.
Helped and hindered by the fiery Elena Carmona, pursued by a psychopathic hitman, Benjamin becomes the prime suspect in a politically motivated kidnap and murder. All this on the eve of Barcelona hosting a G20 summit and UN climate change conference, with the police in hot pursuit fearing a wider terrorist threat.
From Nîmes in the South of France, across the border to the sweltering humidity of Girona, Barcelona, Figueres and Cadaqués, The Barcelona Connection is a fast-paced, gripping page-turner sprinkled with black comedy, blending the real with the surreal, art crime and mistaken identity … and where the clues at the crime scene might just be the mirror image of a long-lost work of art …
If you can’t locate a copy of The Barcelona Connection in your local store, it can be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBNnumber: 978-1-7393326-1-7.
It is also available in print or as an eBook via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from.
Click here for the latest reviews on Amazon and on Goodreads.
A review by Michael Eaude of The Barcelona Connection was published in the October 2023 edition of Catalonia Today.
‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’
‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’
A review by Dominic Begg of The Barcelona Connection was published in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.
‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’
‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’
Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.
‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’
‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’
Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.
A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid - Book & ReviewsEighteen years since it was originally published, ‘A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid’ has been re-issued with a new introduction, new cover and five extra chapters that were cut from the original book.
It is available in print and as an eBook worldwide, in both formats. You can also order the new paperback or digital edition via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or the digital version on Apple, Kobo, Smashwords, or on many other platforms by clicking here.
If you’ve never read the book, I hope you will now acquire a copy and laugh out loud. If you did read and enjoy the original edition, I think you’ll love this new edition with additional chapters! More details about the book and links to many reviews are below.
As with previous posts showing images and locations that form part of the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection novel (above), I am also planning to publish an archive of photos here of Madrid that relate to many chapters in ‘A Load of Bull’ - although it will take time! In Letter from Spain #52, I cover Chapter 1 - the Centro Colón aparthotel (entrance) Watch this space for further images …
A LOAD OF BULL - An Englishman’s Adventures in MadridThe hilarious true story of an Englishman sent to Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue …
In the late eighties Tim Parfitt blagged his way into a job at Condé Nast in London and from there into a six week stint in Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue. Six weeks turned into nine years, and helping out turned into running the company. Along the way, Tim Parfitt discovered the real ‘real’ Spain. He never saw a Costa and he certainly never bought an olive grove. Instead, he discovered a booming city in hedonistic reaction to years of fascism, where sleep was something you only did at work and where five hour lunches invariably involved a course of bull’s testicles.
Tim Parfitt’s rise from unwanted guest to paparazzi-pursued mover in Spain’s glamorous social scene is a hilarious comedy of errors. Frothing with a language designed to make foreigners dribble, hospitalised by tapa-induced flatulence and constantly frustrated by the unapproachable beauty of the women parading through the Vogue offices, he nevertheless falls in love with a city, a country and its people - despite the fact he hasn’t a clue what they’re on about.
You can click here for all the reviews of A Load of Bull on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads.
Links to newspaper and magazine reviews:
‘A hugely entertaining memoir ... frequently laugh-out-loud funny.’ (The Daily Express)
‘Parfitt is no ordinary Englishman … his light touch and neat line in self-deprecating humour perfectly suits this entertaining urban spin on the old tale of Brits having fun under the Spanish sun.’ (The Sunday Times)
‘A love letter to Madrid ... brilliantly captures a truly eccentric and hedonistic place.’ (The Daily Mirror)
‘Often hilarious ... a side-splittingly funny travel memoir.’ (BBC Online)
‘Vivid yet affectionate … fascinating, escapist stuff.’ (OK! Magazine)
‘Magnificent ... brilliant and moving, hilarious and truthful.’ (La Vanguardia)
‘Don’t miss it … Madrid through the eyes of an Englishman.’ (Vogue España)
Spanish editionA Load of Bull was also published in Spanish under the title, Mucho Toro - las tribulaciones de un inglés en la movida. Click here or on image below for the current eBook version.
Contact DetailsYou can email me at: tim.parfitt@hotmail.co.uk
Thanks for reading Letter from Spain! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
January 19, 2026
Letter from Spain #69
Just a short post this week.
The Spanish government has declared the country is in official mourning for three days - from midnight tonight until midnight on Thursday.
At the time of writing this, it has been confirmed that at least 39 people lost their lives after two high-speed trains collided in Andalusia on Sunday evening - a death toll that is likely to rise.
Authorities are currently focused on attending hundreds of distraught family members, asking many of them to provide DNA samples to help identify victims. There is also a fear that more bodies will be discovered once the wreckage of the trains is finally removed.
Various Spaniards who had loved ones on the trains have posted messages on social media saying they are unaccounted for and pleading for any information.
43 people remain in hospital - 39 adults and four children. One of the children and 12 adults are in intensive care. Since yesterday, 79 people have already been discharged.
The high-speed trains collided near Adamuz in the province of Córdoba at 19.45h local time on Sunday, about an hour after one of them - an Iryo train, partly owned by Italy’s state-owned railway company - departed Málaga for Madrid with 294 people on board in eight carriages.
The other train, an Alvia - run by RENFE, Spain’s national railway operator - had left Atocha station in Madrid at 18.05h and was heading to Huelva in Andalusia. It was carrying 184 passengers in four carriages.
At 19.45h, carriages 6, 7 and 8 of the Iryo train came off the tracks close to a set of points near Adamuz. Within 20 seconds, the oncoming Alvia train collided with the derailed carriages. The Alvia train’s front carriages left the track, falling four metres down an embankment.
Investigations are currently underway about the cause of the tragedy - and I am not going to speculate on anything here on Substack.
Human error has already been ‘practically ruled out’ by the president of RENFE. He told Spanish public radio RNE that both trains were under the speed limit of 250 kph; one was going 205 kph, the other 210 kph. He also said: ‘If a train driver makes an incorrect decision, the system itself corrects it. Let’s not speculate; let’s wait for the investigation.’
Spain’s worst train accident this century occurred in 2013, when 80 people died after a train derailed in Galicia. An investigation concluded the train was travelling at 179 kph on a stretch with an 80 kph speed limit when it left the tracks. That stretch of track was also not for high-speed trains.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has pledged to ‘get to the truth’ about the cause of Sunday’s accident in Andalusia. ‘We are going to find the answer and determine the origin of the cause of this tragedy with transparency and clarity,’ he said in a statement to the media in Adamuz.
Meanwhile, he said: ‘Society demands two things from institutions: unity in grief and unity in response.’
Spain has spent decades investing heavily in high-speed trains and currently has the largest rail network in Europe for trains moving over 250 kph, with more than 3,900 kilometres of track.
The network is a popular, competitively priced and safe mode of transport. RENFE said more than 25 million passengers took one of its high-speed trains in 2024.
Iryo became the first private competitor in high-speed to RENFE in Spain in 2022.
I have travelled on Iryo trains a lot. I always use them for travelling from Barcelona to Madrid and back. It has always been a great train - clean, efficient, reliable, spacious - a great service and not expensive. Over the weekend, I even booked a return Iryo ticket to travel to Madrid on 16 April until 20 April for a book event. I will not stop using them.
Watching, reporting and covering the news of this tragedy during all of today, my heart goes out to all those affected - and for the many families, relatives and friends still searching for news of their loved ones.
Next week, I will start sharing details and images from my research for The Madrid Connection - much as I did (below) for The Barcelona Connection.
A bit about me: on and off, I have worked in the media in Spain for some 30 years (click here for more info). Currently, in addition to writing my books set in Spain and developing them for the screen (see below), I also chat briefly on Wednesday mornings to Giles Brown on Talk Radio Europe about the latest news from Spain. If you’re interested, here’s the chat we had last week - on Weds 14 Jan. We talk about Julio Iglesias, blackface, new rental restrictions and Costa del Sol burglars …
Books, Reviews, Research, News & EventsTo anyone in and around Barcelona, come along if you can to this ‘Chit-chat with Author’ event at the Come In English Bookshop on Tuesday 27 January at 6.30pm. You don’t need to have bought your copy of ‘The Madrid Connection’ from the shop - in fact you don’t need to have bought it from anywhere! We’re simply going to have fun chatting about it, and it would be great to see you there. The shop says it would be best to register via the QR code or via this link.
Another date for the diary: on FRIDAY 17 APRIL I am going to be presenting The Madrid Connection in the Secret Kingdoms Bookshop in Madrid. More details to follow in due course.
The Madrid ConnectionPublished on 26 November 2025, The Madrid Connection is a standalone crime-thriller, but also a sequel to The Barcelona Connection (see below).
Here’s the back cover blurb from The Madrid Connection:
Of all the paintings in all the galleries in all of Madrid.
They chose a Caravaggio.
And they chose last night.
On the night Madrid hosts the Champions League Final, disaster erupts at the Prado Museum: a guard is murdered and a Caravaggio is stolen.
British art detective Benjamin Blake, hoping for a quiet few days in the city on a low-key assignment, instead finds himself dragged into the chaos he swore to avoid.
Suddenly he’s the investigation’s uninvited headache – and possibly its key.
Rival mafias begin circling. The Asians want him gone. The Italians want him alive – at least for now.
As the cultural bureaucrats drag him into the case to deflect from their own failings, Madrid’s homicide chief – choking on his own lies – wants him nowhere near the case, let alone the truth.
Across the city, journalist Elena Carmona is in Madrid on a separate assignment, digging into the poison of racism in football – an evil that opens into a far wider conspiracy.
Trafficking, exploitation and revenge run beneath the pitch and deep into the criminal underworld, drawing her straight towards the same mafias now circling the stolen Caravaggio.
As her investigation crashes straight into Benjamin’s, they find themselves at the centre of something far darker than either imagined.
Art, money, football, murder, mafia – Madrid was never going to keep them apart.
The Madrid Connection is a fast, gripping and darkly funny page-turner - the perfect sequel to The Barcelona Connection .
As with The Barcelona Connection below, I’ll be posting more details about the research behind The Madrid Connection over the coming weeks - together with many photos taken in Madrid of the locations in the book.
The Barcelona Connection - Research & development for the screen‘The Barcelona Connection’ is in development for the screen, and I hope I will be able to post further news about this here in due course.
Research: In my weekly ‘Letter from Spain’ from #7 right up to #42, I included notes about all the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection. Many of the posts include photos and descriptions of locations that appear in the book, from Nîmes, Figueres, Cadaqués, La Bisbal d’Empordà and, of course, many areas of Barcelona. There are also posts about Salvador Dalí’s Hallucinogenic Toreador and ‘The Face’, the Dalí Museum in Figueres, the Picasso Museum and MNAC in Barcelona, even Girona Airport and nearby motorway service station - as well as the G20 Spouse Party, museum visits and ‘art attacks’. I hope the notes about the research are of interest … and I hope you might buy, read and take The Barcelona Connection with you to some of the locations that appear in the book! If you do, please send me a photo and I’ll post it here …
The Barcelona Connection - Book & ReviewsA murder. A kidnapping. A lost Salvador Dalí painting. Just 36 hours to resolve all three. Every crime scene is a work of art …
Benjamin Blake is no ordinary detective. Specialising in the criminal underworld of stolen and forged art, things don’t always go the right way for Benjamin. But when they don’t, he has a stubborn determination to put them right.
Within hours of being sent to Barcelona to authenticate a possible Salvador Dalí painting, Benjamin is left stranded without his cell phone at a service station alongside a bloody corpse in the early hours of the morning, after being savagely attacked with his hire car stolen, together with the painting.
Helped and hindered by the fiery Elena Carmona, pursued by a psychopathic hitman, Benjamin becomes the prime suspect in a politically motivated kidnap and murder. All this on the eve of Barcelona hosting a G20 summit and UN climate change conference, with the police in hot pursuit fearing a wider terrorist threat.
From Nîmes in the South of France, across the border to the sweltering humidity of Girona, Barcelona, Figueres and Cadaqués, The Barcelona Connection is a fast-paced, gripping page-turner sprinkled with black comedy, blending the real with the surreal, art crime and mistaken identity … and where the clues at the crime scene might just be the mirror image of a long-lost work of art …
If you can’t locate a copy of The Barcelona Connection in your local store, it can be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBNnumber: 978-1-7393326-1-7.
It is also available in print or as an eBook via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from.
Click here for the latest reviews on Amazon and on Goodreads.
A review by Michael Eaude of The Barcelona Connection was published in the October 2023 edition of Catalonia Today.
‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’
‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’
A review by Dominic Begg of The Barcelona Connection was published in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.
‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’
‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’
Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.
‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’
‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’
Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.
A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid - Book & ReviewsEighteen years since it was originally published, ‘A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid’ has been re-issued with a new introduction, new cover and five extra chapters that were cut from the original book.
It is available in print and as an eBook worldwide, in both formats. You can also order the new paperback or digital edition via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or the digital version on Apple, Kobo, Smashwords, or on many other platforms by clicking here.
If you’ve never read the book, I hope you will now acquire a copy and laugh out loud. If you did read and enjoy the original edition, I think you’ll love this new edition with additional chapters! More details about the book and links to many reviews are below.
As with previous posts showing images and locations that form part of the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection novel (above), I am also planning to publish an archive of photos here of Madrid that relate to many chapters in ‘A Load of Bull’ - although it will take time! In Letter from Spain #52, I cover Chapter 1 - the Centro Colón aparthotel (entrance) Watch this space for further images …
A LOAD OF BULL - An Englishman’s Adventures in MadridThe hilarious true story of an Englishman sent to Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue …
In the late eighties Tim Parfitt blagged his way into a job at Condé Nast in London and from there into a six week stint in Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue. Six weeks turned into nine years, and helping out turned into running the company. Along the way, Tim Parfitt discovered the real ‘real’ Spain. He never saw a Costa and he certainly never bought an olive grove. Instead, he discovered a booming city in hedonistic reaction to years of fascism, where sleep was something you only did at work and where five hour lunches invariably involved a course of bull’s testicles.
Tim Parfitt’s rise from unwanted guest to paparazzi-pursued mover in Spain’s glamorous social scene is a hilarious comedy of errors. Frothing with a language designed to make foreigners dribble, hospitalised by tapa-induced flatulence and constantly frustrated by the unapproachable beauty of the women parading through the Vogue offices, he nevertheless falls in love with a city, a country and its people - despite the fact he hasn’t a clue what they’re on about.
You can click here for all the reviews of A Load of Bull on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads.
Links to newspaper and magazine reviews:
‘A hugely entertaining memoir ... frequently laugh-out-loud funny.’ (The Daily Express)
‘Parfitt is no ordinary Englishman … his light touch and neat line in self-deprecating humour perfectly suits this entertaining urban spin on the old tale of Brits having fun under the Spanish sun.’ (The Sunday Times)
‘A love letter to Madrid ... brilliantly captures a truly eccentric and hedonistic place.’ (The Daily Mirror)
‘Often hilarious ... a side-splittingly funny travel memoir.’ (BBC Online)
‘Vivid yet affectionate … fascinating, escapist stuff.’ (OK! Magazine)
‘Magnificent ... brilliant and moving, hilarious and truthful.’ (La Vanguardia)
‘Don’t miss it … Madrid through the eyes of an Englishman.’ (Vogue España)
Spanish editionA Load of Bull was also published in Spanish under the title, Mucho Toro - las tribulaciones de un inglés en la movida. Click here or on image below for the current eBook version.
Contact DetailsYou can email me at: tim.parfitt@hotmail.co.uk
Thanks for reading Letter from Spain! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
January 12, 2026
Letter from Spain #68
I’m back - and a belated Happy New Year to you all.
I haven’t Substacked since announcing the publication of The Madrid Connection in late November, and the last Letter from Spain was back in September. I’ll try to turn up here a little more often from now on.
With the recent, real-world geopolitical shock of US forces capturing Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro, online commentators were quick to announce that Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan had anticipated it years earlier.
Clips from season two of the Amazon Prime series resurfaced within hours, timelines filled with certainty, and the familiar accusation was made: fiction, once again, had predicted reality.
In Jack Ryan, CIA analyst Ryan - played by John Krasinski - warns that Venezuela represents a global threat due to its oil and mineral wealth, its spiralling humanitarian crisis, and its proximity to the United States. In the series, the Venezuelan storyline ends with a corrupt fictional president exposed and removed through political manoeuvring and elections.
Reality, by contrast, arrived with airstrikes, helicopters and special forces.
Even US President Donald Trump compared the operation to entertainment after revealing that he had followed the raid in real time.
‘[Maduro] was in a very highly guarded ... like a fortress actually,’ Trump said. He added that it was ‘like I was watching a television show’.
We can become very attached to the idea that someone, somewhere, knew something was going to happen. But the show’s co-creator, Carlton Cuse, was quick to deny any such foresight. The storyline, he said, was never meant to predict the future, insisting the series - released in 2019 - was grounded in plausibility.
‘The season came from our desire to tell a fictional story about the forces at play, not from imagining an outcome,’ he told Deadline Hollywood.
‘What always surprises you as a storyteller is how often real-world events catch up to fiction,’ he added.
Tell me about it.
Back in October, when I was halfway through the final edits of a fictional museum heist at the Prado Museum in my crime-thriller novel The Madrid Connection, someone went and did one for real … albeit in Paris.
On 19 October, thieves wielding power tools robbed the Louvre Museum in broad daylight, making off with some of France’s crown jewels in a brazen, seven-minute operation that played out almost in real time across news channels and social media.
I wasn’t quite sure how to take it at first. There was relief, obviously - mainly that it hadn’t happened in Madrid - followed by the slightly queasy sense of recognition. The story unfolded exactly as I had imagined such a scenario might. The initial breaking news contained almost no detail, just breathless headlines and vague official statements.
Then came the escalation: the enormity of the theft, the audacity of it, the sense that something fundamental had failed. Accusations began to fly - between security teams, the museum, the French culture ministry, politicians and the police - each keen to put a little distance between themselves and events. It was, to my mild alarm, precisely how I had pictured (and already written) how things might play out among the Spanish authorities if something similar were to happen at the Prado.
The specifics, of course, were different. My fictional heist takes place in the dead of night rather than in broad daylight, involves a murdered guard, and sits inside a much larger plot.
But the mechanics were there: the access points, a ‘ladder’, the smashed window, the institutional confusion that follows an event nobody wants to have imagined in advance. In the end, I decided not to fight it. I couldn’t fight it. Instead, I allowed the Louvre theft to exist inside my novel’s world, referenced briefly by a couple of characters as a recent and unsettling precedent.
The Madrid Connection therefore takes place several months later, in a landscape where the unthinkable has already happened once - just not in Madrid. If anything, the Louvre made my fictional Prado heist more plausible. It served as a reminder - to me, and hopefully to the reader - that in matters of security, culture and human ingenuity, ‘it would never happen here’ is a phrase that rarely ages well.
And the heist isn’t the only place where the novel brushes up against recognisable features of contemporary life in Spain. Like most fiction, it borrows freely from the world around it - politics, football, housing, public life, social issues, scandals, crime …
A few years ago, while writing The Barcelona Connection, I worried that a bullfighter would be kidnapped by animal-rights extremists before the novel was published. In fact, I was surprised that it hadn’t already happened. The book began life as a screenplay when bullfights were still held in Barcelona. Once bullfighting was banned in Catalonia, I moved those scenes to Nîmes in southern France, where they remain in the novel.
In an early version of that screenplay, before Trump was a presidential candidate, I also wrote the character of a US president who was crass, overweight, inept, self-absorbed, and a serial sex pest. An agent told me the character was too extreme. ‘It wouldn’t happen,’ she said. ‘There would never be a US president like that.’
Reality or fiction? I rest my case.
It’s good to be back here. In my weekly posts from now on, I will start sharing details and images from my research for The Madrid Connection - much as I did (below) for The Barcelona Connection.
A bit about me: on and off, I have worked in the media in Spain for some 30 years (click here for more info). Currently, in addition to writing my books set in Spain and developing them for the screen (see below), I also chat briefly on Wednesday mornings to Giles Brown on Talk Radio Europe about the latest news from Spain. I will be chatting with him again this Weds 14 January at around 11am.
Books, Reviews, Research, News & EventsTo anyone in and around Barcelona, come along if you can to this ‘Book Club with Author’ event at the Come In English Bookshop on Tuesday 27 January at 6.30pm. You don’t need to have bought your copy of ‘The Madrid Connection’ from the shop - in fact you don’t need to have bought it from anywhere! We’re simply going to have fun chatting about it, and it would be great to see you there. The shop says it would be best to register via the QR code or via this link.
Another date for the diary: on FRIDAY 17 APRIL I am going to be presenting The Madrid Connection in the Secret Kingdoms Bookshop in Madrid. More details to follow in due course.
The Madrid ConnectionPublished on 26 November 2025, The Madrid Connection is a standalone crime-thriller, but also a sequel to The Barcelona Connection (see below).
Here’s the back cover blurb from The Madrid Connection:
Of all the paintings in all the galleries in all of Madrid.
They chose a Caravaggio.
And they chose last night.
On the night Madrid hosts the Champions League Final, disaster erupts at the Prado Museum: a guard is murdered and a Caravaggio is stolen.
British art detective Benjamin Blake, hoping for a quiet few days in the city on a low-key assignment, instead finds himself dragged into the chaos he swore to avoid.
Suddenly he’s the investigation’s uninvited headache – and possibly its key.
Rival mafias begin circling. The Asians want him gone. The Italians want him alive – at least for now.
As the cultural bureaucrats drag him into the case to deflect from their own failings, Madrid’s homicide chief – choking on his own lies – wants him nowhere near the case, let alone the truth.
Across the city, journalist Elena Carmona is in Madrid on a separate assignment, digging into the poison of racism in football – an evil that opens into a far wider conspiracy.
Trafficking, exploitation and revenge run beneath the pitch and deep into the criminal underworld, drawing her straight towards the same mafias now circling the stolen Caravaggio.
As her investigation crashes straight into Benjamin’s, they find themselves at the centre of something far darker than either imagined.
Art, money, football, murder, mafia – Madrid was never going to keep them apart.
The Madrid Connection is a fast, gripping and darkly funny page-turner - the perfect sequel to The Barcelona Connection .
As with The Barcelona Connection below, I’ll be posting more details about the research behind The Madrid Connection over the coming weeks - together with many photos taken in Madrid of the locations in the book.
The Barcelona Connection - Research & development for the screen‘The Barcelona Connection’ is in development for the screen, and I hope I will be able to post further news about this here in due course.
Research: In my weekly ‘Letter from Spain’ from #7 right up to #42, I included notes about all the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection. Many of the posts include photos and descriptions of locations that appear in the book, from Nîmes, Figueres, Cadaqués, La Bisbal d’Empordà and, of course, many areas of Barcelona. There are also posts about Salvador Dalí’s Hallucinogenic Toreador and ‘The Face’, the Dalí Museum in Figueres, the Picasso Museum and MNAC in Barcelona, even Girona Airport and nearby motorway service station - as well as the G20 Spouse Party, museum visits and ‘art attacks’. I hope the notes about the research are of interest … and I hope you might buy, read and take The Barcelona Connection with you to some of the locations that appear in the book! If you do, please send me a photo and I’ll post it here …
The Barcelona Connection - Book & ReviewsA murder. A kidnapping. A lost Salvador Dalí painting. Just 36 hours to resolve all three. Every crime scene is a work of art …
Benjamin Blake is no ordinary detective. Specialising in the criminal underworld of stolen and forged art, things don’t always go the right way for Benjamin. But when they don’t, he has a stubborn determination to put them right.
Within hours of being sent to Barcelona to authenticate a possible Salvador Dalí painting, Benjamin is left stranded without his cell phone at a service station alongside a bloody corpse in the early hours of the morning, after being savagely attacked with his hire car stolen, together with the painting.
Helped and hindered by the fiery Elena Carmona, pursued by a psychopathic hitman, Benjamin becomes the prime suspect in a politically motivated kidnap and murder. All this on the eve of Barcelona hosting a G20 summit and UN climate change conference, with the police in hot pursuit fearing a wider terrorist threat.
From Nîmes in the South of France, across the border to the sweltering humidity of Girona, Barcelona, Figueres and Cadaqués, The Barcelona Connection is a fast-paced, gripping page-turner sprinkled with black comedy, blending the real with the surreal, art crime and mistaken identity … and where the clues at the crime scene might just be the mirror image of a long-lost work of art …
If you can’t locate a copy of The Barcelona Connection in your local store, it can be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBNnumber: 978-1-7393326-1-7.
It is also available in print or as an eBook via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from.
Click here for the latest reviews on Amazon and on Goodreads.
A review by Michael Eaude of The Barcelona Connection was published in the October 2023 edition of Catalonia Today.
‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’
‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’
A review by Dominic Begg of The Barcelona Connection was published in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.
‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’
‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’
Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.
‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’
‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’
Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.
A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid - Book & ReviewsEighteen years since it was originally published, ‘A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid’ has been re-issued with a new introduction, new cover and five extra chapters that were cut from the original book.
It is available in print and as an eBook worldwide, in both formats. You can also order the new paperback or digital edition via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or the digital version on Apple, Kobo, Smashwords, or on many other platforms by clicking here.
If you’ve never read the book, I hope you will now acquire a copy and laugh out loud. If you did read and enjoy the original edition, I think you’ll love this new edition with additional chapters! More details about the book and links to many reviews are below.
As with previous posts showing images and locations that form part of the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection novel (above), I am also planning to publish an archive of photos here of Madrid that relate to many chapters in ‘A Load of Bull’ - although it will take time! In Letter from Spain #52, I cover Chapter 1 - the Centro Colón aparthotel (entrance) Watch this space for further images …
A LOAD OF BULL - An Englishman’s Adventures in MadridThe hilarious true story of an Englishman sent to Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue …
In the late eighties Tim Parfitt blagged his way into a job at Condé Nast in London and from there into a six week stint in Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue. Six weeks turned into nine years, and helping out turned into running the company. Along the way, Tim Parfitt discovered the real ‘real’ Spain. He never saw a Costa and he certainly never bought an olive grove. Instead, he discovered a booming city in hedonistic reaction to years of fascism, where sleep was something you only did at work and where five hour lunches invariably involved a course of bull’s testicles.
Tim Parfitt’s rise from unwanted guest to paparazzi-pursued mover in Spain’s glamorous social scene is a hilarious comedy of errors. Frothing with a language designed to make foreigners dribble, hospitalised by tapa-induced flatulence and constantly frustrated by the unapproachable beauty of the women parading through the Vogue offices, he nevertheless falls in love with a city, a country and its people - despite the fact he hasn’t a clue what they’re on about.
You can click here for all the reviews of A Load of Bull on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads.
Links to newspaper and magazine reviews:
‘A hugely entertaining memoir ... frequently laugh-out-loud funny.’ (The Daily Express)
‘Parfitt is no ordinary Englishman … his light touch and neat line in self-deprecating humour perfectly suits this entertaining urban spin on the old tale of Brits having fun under the Spanish sun.’ (The Sunday Times)
‘A love letter to Madrid ... brilliantly captures a truly eccentric and hedonistic place.’ (The Daily Mirror)
‘Often hilarious ... a side-splittingly funny travel memoir.’ (BBC Online)
‘Vivid yet affectionate … fascinating, escapist stuff.’ (OK! Magazine)
‘Magnificent ... brilliant and moving, hilarious and truthful.’ (La Vanguardia)
‘Don’t miss it … Madrid through the eyes of an Englishman.’ (Vogue España)
Spanish editionA Load of Bull was also published in Spanish under the title, Mucho Toro - las tribulaciones de un inglés en la movida. Click here or on image below for the current eBook version.
Contact DetailsYou can email me at: tim.parfitt@hotmail.co.uk
Thanks for reading Letter from Spain! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
November 26, 2025
The Madrid Connection
Rival mafias. Football corruption. A stolen Caravaggio. Madrid is losing its head.
Just a quick post to say that I’m delighted to announce that The Madrid Connection is finally published, and is now available as a paperback or eBook via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, Nook etc, with many more outlets and bookshops to follow.
The book is a sequel to The Barcelona Connection - yet it is also a standalone crime-thriller with black comedy (as was the first book). Here’s the back cover blurb to let you know what it’s all about:
Of all the paintings in all the galleries in all of Madrid.
They chose a Caravaggio.
And they chose last night.
On the night Madrid hosts the Champions League Final, disaster erupts at the Prado Museum: a guard is murdered and a Caravaggio is stolen.
British art detective Benjamin Blake, hoping for a quiet few days in the city on a low-key assignment, instead finds himself dragged into the chaos he swore to avoid.
Suddenly he’s the investigation’s uninvited headache – and possibly its key.
Rival mafias begin circling. The Asians want him gone. The Italians want him alive – at least for now.
As the cultural bureaucrats drag him into the case to deflect from their own failings, Madrid’s homicide chief – choking on his own lies – wants him nowhere near the case, let alone the truth.
Across the city, journalist Elena Carmona is in Madrid on a separate assignment, digging into the poison of racism in football – an evil that opens into a far wider conspiracy.
Trafficking, exploitation and revenge run beneath the pitch and deep into the criminal underworld, drawing her straight towards the same mafias now circling the stolen Caravaggio.
As her investigation crashes straight into Benjamin’s, they find themselves at the centre of something far darker than either imagined.
Art, money, football, murder, mafia – Madrid was never going to keep them apart.
The Madrid Connection is a fast, gripping and darkly funny page-turner - the perfect sequel to The Barcelona Connection .
As with The Barcelona Connection below, I’ll be posting more details about the research behind The Madrid Connection over the coming weeks - together with many photos taken in Madrid of the locations in the book. I hope to be back more regularly with the ‘Letter from Spain’ from Monday 8 December onwards.
I very much hope that you might consider purchasing and reading The Madrid Connection - and in the hope that you enjoy it, please also consider posting a review somewhere and recommending it to everyone else! I’m going to be doing a few events over the coming months to promote it fully - there’s already one below on 18 December. The Barcelona Connection, meanwhile, continues in its development for the screen.
Thank you for reading! More soon …
On and off, I have worked in the media in Spain for some 30 years (click here for more info). Currently, in addition to writing my books set in Spain and developing one of them for the screen (see below), I also chat briefly on most Wednesdays to Giles Brown on Talk Radio Europe about the latest news from Spain. If you’re interested, here’s the clip from today (Weds 26 November) in which we mainly discuss Franco …
Books, Reviews, Research, News & EventsOn Thursday 18 December I am participating in an event in Barcelona at the Backstory English Bookshop, Carrer de Mallorca, 330 - from 6pm to 7.30pm. It’s called ‘Crime and Punishment: Writing from Real-Life Experiences’. I’ll be chatting alongside Scottish author and former crime journalist Emma Christie and Lorne Walker-Nolan, professor of criminology and a former criminal lawyer. Click here for further details and to RSVP or on image below. Come along if you can - I hope to see you there!
The Barcelona Connection - Research & development for the screenDevelopment for the screen: ‘The Barcelona Connection’ is currently in development as a film, and I hope I will be able to post further news about this here in due course.
Research: In my weekly ‘Letter from Spain’ from #7 right up to #42, I included notes about all the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection. Many of the posts include photos and descriptions of locations that appear in the book, from Nîmes, Figueres, Cadaqués, La Bisbal d’Empordà and, of course, many areas of Barcelona. There are also posts about Salvador Dalí’s Hallucinogenic Toreador and ‘The Face’, the Dalí Museum in Figueres, the Picasso Museum and MNAC in Barcelona, even Girona Airport and nearby motorway service station - as well as the G20 Spouse Party, museum visits and ‘art attacks’. I hope the notes about the research are of interest … and I hope you might buy, read and take The Barcelona Connection with you to some of the locations that appear in the book! If you do, please send me a photo and I’ll post it here …
The Barcelona Connection - Book & ReviewsA murder. A kidnapping. A lost Salvador Dalí painting. Just 36 hours to resolve all three. Every crime scene is a work of art …
Benjamin Blake is no ordinary detective. Specialising in the criminal underworld of stolen and forged art, things don’t always go the right way for Benjamin. But when they don’t, he has a stubborn determination to put them right.
Within hours of being sent to Barcelona to authenticate a possible Salvador Dalí painting, Benjamin is left stranded without his cell phone at a service station alongside a bloody corpse in the early hours of the morning, after being savagely attacked with his hire car stolen, together with the painting.
Helped and hindered by the fiery Elena Carmona, pursued by a psychopathic hitman, Benjamin becomes the prime suspect in a politically motivated kidnap and murder. All this on the eve of Barcelona hosting a G20 summit and UN climate change conference, with the police in hot pursuit fearing a wider terrorist threat.
From Nîmes in the South of France, across the border to the sweltering humidity of Girona, Barcelona, Figueres and Cadaqués, The Barcelona Connection is a fast-paced, gripping page-turner sprinkled with black comedy, blending the real with the surreal, art crime and mistaken identity … and where the clues at the crime scene might just be the mirror image of a long-lost work of art …
If you can’t locate a copy of The Barcelona Connection in your local store, it can be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBNnumber: 978-1-7393326-1-7.
It is also available in print or as an eBook via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from.
Click here for the latest reviews on Amazon and on Goodreads.
A review by Michael Eaude of The Barcelona Connection was published in the October 2023 edition of Catalonia Today.
‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’
‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’
A review by Dominic Begg of The Barcelona Connection was published in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.
‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’
‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’
Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.
‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’
‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’
Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.
A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid - Book & ReviewsEighteen years since it was originally published, ‘A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid’ has been re-issued with a new introduction, new cover and five extra chapters that were cut from the original book.
It is available in print and as an eBook worldwide, in both formats. You can also order the new paperback or digital edition via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or the digital version on Apple, Kobo, Smashwords, or on many other platforms by clicking here.
If you’ve never read the book, I hope you will now acquire a copy and laugh out loud. If you did read and enjoy the original edition, I think you’ll love this new edition with additional chapters! More details about the book and links to many reviews are below.
As with previous posts showing images and locations that form part of the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection novel (above), I am also planning to publish an archive of photos here of Madrid that relate to many chapters in ‘A Load of Bull’ - although it will take time! In Letter from Spain #52, I cover Chapter 1 - the Centro Colón aparthotel (entrance) Watch this space for further images …
A LOAD OF BULL - An Englishman’s Adventures in MadridThe hilarious true story of an Englishman sent to Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue …
In the late eighties Tim Parfitt blagged his way into a job at Condé Nast in London and from there into a six week stint in Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue. Six weeks turned into nine years, and helping out turned into running the company. Along the way, Tim Parfitt discovered the real ‘real’ Spain. He never saw a Costa and he certainly never bought an olive grove. Instead, he discovered a booming city in hedonistic reaction to years of fascism, where sleep was something you only did at work and where five hour lunches invariably involved a course of bull’s testicles.
Tim Parfitt’s rise from unwanted guest to paparazzi-pursued mover in Spain’s glamorous social scene is a hilarious comedy of errors. Frothing with a language designed to make foreigners dribble, hospitalised by tapa-induced flatulence and constantly frustrated by the unapproachable beauty of the women parading through the Vogue offices, he nevertheless falls in love with a city, a country and its people - despite the fact he hasn’t a clue what they’re on about.
You can click here for all the reviews of A Load of Bull on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads.
Links to newspaper and magazine reviews:
‘A hugely entertaining memoir ... frequently laugh-out-loud funny.’ (The Daily Express)
‘Parfitt is no ordinary Englishman … his light touch and neat line in self-deprecating humour perfectly suits this entertaining urban spin on the old tale of Brits having fun under the Spanish sun.’ (The Sunday Times)
‘A love letter to Madrid ... brilliantly captures a truly eccentric and hedonistic place.’ (The Daily Mirror)
‘Often hilarious ... a side-splittingly funny travel memoir.’ (BBC Online)
‘Vivid yet affectionate … fascinating, escapist stuff.’ (OK! Magazine)
‘Magnificent ... brilliant and moving, hilarious and truthful.’ (La Vanguardia)
‘Don’t miss it … Madrid through the eyes of an Englishman.’ (Vogue España)
Spanish editionA Load of Bull was also published in Spanish under the title, Mucho Toro - las tribulaciones de un inglés en la movida. Click here or on image below for the current eBook version.
Contact DetailsYou can email me at: tim.parfitt@hotmail.co.uk
Thanks for reading Letter from Spain! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
September 29, 2025
Letter from Spain #67
I’ve started to eat three yoghurts a day here in Catalonia - and it’s a Catalan brand called La Fageda. Why? Because I recently discovered that the ‘supercentenarian’ María Branyas Morera ate three of them a day.
I don’t know how much Bezos and Zuckerberg spend a year in search (and/or research) of longevity but a 4-pack of La Fageda yoghurts costs just €1.88 in my local Bonpreu.
María Branyas, who lived for the past two decades in the Santa Maria del Tura nursing home in Olot, Catalonia, died of natural causes in her sleep on 19 August 2024 at the age of 117 years and 168 days. That’s 117 and a half.
María was born in San Francisco in 1907 before moving with her family to Spain at the age of eight. Over her lifetime she lived through the Spanish Civil War, two world wars, and two pandemics (Spanish flu and Covid). She even recovered from Covid at the age of 113.
Guinness World Records had officially confirmed María’s status as the world’s oldest known person alive before her death. She’d held the record since January 2023 following the death of a French nun, aged 118. I don’t know how many yoghurts the French nun used to eat a day, but I bet she had a few. The world’s oldest living person is now 116-year-old Ethel Caterham from Surrey. My guess is that she also has a soft spot for yoghurt.
Before María died, bless her, the Catalan supercentenarian said to doctors: ‘Please study me so I can help others.’
And they did.
About a year before her death, doctors collected samples of her blood, saliva, urine and stools to perform a ‘multi-omic analysis’ and build a biological profile. They also investigated María’s genes, immune cells, blood levels of lipids, and proteins in her tissues, comparing her results to those of younger individuals who had undergone similar testing. For example, they compared María’s genetic results to those of 75 other Iberian women in the 1000 Genomes Project, an effort to map variation in the human genome. The biology of such an elderly person had never been studied in such depth.
Some 40 scientists participated in the research, and it was led by Manel Esteller, Head of the Cancer Epigenetics group at the Josep Carreras Leukemia Research Institute. Overall, they studied the biological basis of María’s longevity and its possible connection to her habits and attitude toward life.
The results of the study were published last Wednesday 24 September in the journal Cell Reports Medicine and they have detailed the key factors that may have influenced María’s longevity.
Apparently she ‘lacked many molecular hallmarks of typical late-life illnesses’ and carried ‘genetic variants that favoured efficient cholesterol and lipid processing’, both linked to long life and good brain function. Epigenetic testing also suggested her biological age was at least a decade younger than her real one.
But one striking detail researchers want to explore further is her diet, especially her routine of eating yoghurt three times a day. She favoured La Fageda, a Catalan probiotic brand rich in beneficial bacteria such as Lactobacillus delbrueckii bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus, known to reduce inflammation.
The study states that María’s gut microbiome was distinct from that of 61- to 91-year olds previously studied. In particular, she showed a high level of actinobacteria, which typically decline in old age. Bacteria of the genus Bifidobacterium, which are known to excrete anti-inflammatory compounds, were especially prevalent.
‘She had this bacteria in the gut that protected against inflammation and she had this bacteria for two reasons,’ Manel Esteller said. ‘The genome was very welcoming of the population, but [it was] also due to her food.’ María ate three yoghurts a day, he said; fermented foods like yoghurt contain probiotics, or living microorganisms that can replenish and maintain the gut microbiome.
This is a direct quote from the Cell Reports summary link above:
‘Our supercentenarian ingested a high amount of yoghurts, a trait associated with reduced body weight and type-2 diabetes incidence and diminished body fat and insulin resistance. In our case, whether the dominance of the Bifidobacteriumrelated genus is fully attributable or not to the yoghurt diet cannot be completely confirmed since that would have required a longitudinal study with sample collection over several years. However, we believe that it is likely that a beneficial effect of yoghurt ingestion via modulation of the gut ecosystem could have contributed to her well-being and advanced age. In addition to the dietary influence, there is an increasing interest in fecal microbiota transplantation studies that through promoting gut microbial rejuvenation could also foster healthy aging.’
So, there you go. Yoghurt. Longevity.
María also started her mornings with a cereal smoothie made from eight different grains - but that sounds too complex for me. Either no breakfast at all, or some fruit and a tiny bit of Kellogg’s All-Bran does the trick.
Okay - one final note: her longevity was not due to genetics (or yoghurt) alone. She maintained a healthy weight, had a strong social circle with family and friends close by, and never smoked or drank.
I can’t never drink - but at least it’s now mainly Catalan wine, like the yoghurts.
On and off, I have worked in the media in Spain for some 30 years (click here for more info). Currently, in addition to writing my books set in Spain and developing one of them for the screen (see below), I also chat briefly on most Wednesdays to Giles Brown on Talk Radio Europe about the latest news from Spain. If you’re interested, here’s the clip from Weds 24 September in which we discuss the current corruption trials in Spain, Pedro Sánchez and Felipe VI’s comments on Israel & Gaza, and the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona …
Books, Reviews, Research, News & EventsThe Madrid Connection … coming soon!‘The Madrid Connection’, the sequel to ‘The Barcelona Connection’, will be officially published on 21 November. I will be posting further details about the book over the coming weeks. The digital edition is available for pre-order here.
The Barcelona Connection - Research & development for the screenDevelopment for the screen: ‘The Barcelona Connection’ is currently in development as a film, and I hope I will be able to post further news about this here in due course.
Research: In my weekly ‘Letter from Spain’ from #7 right up to #42, I included notes about all the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection. Many of the posts include photos and descriptions of locations that appear in the book, from Nîmes, Figueres, Cadaqués, La Bisbal d’Empordà and, of course, many areas of Barcelona. There are also posts about Salvador Dalí’s Hallucinogenic Toreador and ‘The Face’, the Dalí Museum in Figueres, the Picasso Museum and MNAC in Barcelona, even Girona Airport and nearby motorway service station - as well as the G20 Spouse Party, museum visits and ‘art attacks’. I hope the notes about the research are of interest … and I hope you might buy, read and take The Barcelona Connection with you to some of the locations that appear in the book! If you do, please send me a photo and I’ll post it here …
The Barcelona Connection - Book & ReviewsA murder. A kidnapping. A lost Salvador Dalí painting. Just 36 hours to resolve all three. Every crime scene is a work of art …
Benjamin Blake is no ordinary detective. Specialising in the criminal underworld of stolen and forged art, things don’t always go the right way for Benjamin. But when they don’t, he has a stubborn determination to put them right.
Within hours of being sent to Barcelona to authenticate a possible Salvador Dalí painting, Benjamin is left stranded without his cell phone at a service station alongside a bloody corpse in the early hours of the morning, after being savagely attacked with his hire car stolen, together with the painting.
Helped and hindered by the fiery Elena Carmona, pursued by a psychopathic hitman, Benjamin becomes the prime suspect in a politically motivated kidnap and murder. All this on the eve of Barcelona hosting a G20 summit and UN climate change conference, with the police in hot pursuit fearing a wider terrorist threat.
From Nîmes in the South of France, across the border to the sweltering humidity of Girona, Barcelona, Figueres and Cadaqués, The Barcelona Connection is a fast-paced, gripping page-turner sprinkled with black comedy, blending the real with the surreal, art crime and mistaken identity … and where the clues at the crime scene might just be the mirror image of a long-lost work of art …
If you can’t locate a copy of The Barcelona Connection in your local store, it can be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBNnumber: 978-1-7393326-1-7.
It is also available in print or as an eBook via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from.
Click here for the latest reviews on Amazon and on Goodreads.
A review by Michael Eaude of The Barcelona Connection was published in the October 2023 edition of Catalonia Today.
‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’
‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’
A review by Dominic Begg of The Barcelona Connection was published in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.
‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’
‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’
Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.
‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’
‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’
Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.
A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid - Book & ReviewsEighteen years since it was originally published, ‘A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid’ has been re-issued with a new introduction, new cover and five extra chapters that were cut from the original book.
It is available in print and as an eBook worldwide, in both formats. You can also order the new paperback or digital edition via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or the digital version on Apple, Kobo, Smashwords, or on many other platforms by clicking here.
If you’ve never read the book, I hope you will now acquire a copy and laugh out loud. If you did read and enjoy the original edition, I think you’ll love this new edition with additional chapters! More details about the book and links to many reviews are below.
As with previous posts showing images and locations that form part of the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection novel (above), I am also planning to publish an archive of photos here of Madrid that relate to many chapters in ‘A Load of Bull’ - although it will take time! In Letter from Spain #52, I cover Chapter 1 - the Centro Colón aparthotel (entrance) Watch this space for further images …
A LOAD OF BULL - An Englishman’s Adventures in MadridThe hilarious true story of an Englishman sent to Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue …
In the late eighties Tim Parfitt blagged his way into a job at Condé Nast in London and from there into a six week stint in Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue. Six weeks turned into nine years, and helping out turned into running the company. Along the way, Tim Parfitt discovered the real ‘real’ Spain. He never saw a Costa and he certainly never bought an olive grove. Instead, he discovered a booming city in hedonistic reaction to years of fascism, where sleep was something you only did at work and where five hour lunches invariably involved a course of bull’s testicles.
Tim Parfitt’s rise from unwanted guest to paparazzi-pursued mover in Spain’s glamorous social scene is a hilarious comedy of errors. Frothing with a language designed to make foreigners dribble, hospitalised by tapa-induced flatulence and constantly frustrated by the unapproachable beauty of the women parading through the Vogue offices, he nevertheless falls in love with a city, a country and its people - despite the fact he hasn’t a clue what they’re on about.
You can click here for all the reviews of A Load of Bull on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads.
Links to newspaper and magazine reviews:
‘A hugely entertaining memoir ... frequently laugh-out-loud funny.’ (The Daily Express)
‘Parfitt is no ordinary Englishman … his light touch and neat line in self-deprecating humour perfectly suits this entertaining urban spin on the old tale of Brits having fun under the Spanish sun.’ (The Sunday Times)
‘A love letter to Madrid ... brilliantly captures a truly eccentric and hedonistic place.’ (The Daily Mirror)
‘Often hilarious ... a side-splittingly funny travel memoir.’ (BBC Online)
‘Vivid yet affectionate … fascinating, escapist stuff.’ (OK! Magazine)
‘Magnificent ... brilliant and moving, hilarious and truthful.’ (La Vanguardia)
‘Don’t miss it … Madrid through the eyes of an Englishman.’ (Vogue España)
Spanish editionA Load of Bull was also published in Spanish under the title, Mucho Toro - las tribulaciones de un inglés en la movida. Click here or on image below for the current eBook version.
Contact DetailsYou can email me at: tim.parfitt@hotmail.co.uk
Thanks for reading Letter from Spain! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
September 15, 2025
Letter from Spain #66
Over 100,000 Madrileños managed to cut short the 21st and final stage of Spain’s ‘La Vuelta’ cycling tour yesterday, protesting against the participation of a team with links to Israel - and amid Israel’s actions in Gaza.
The Israel-Premier Tech team is not an official state team, but privately funded by a billionaire Israeli-Canadian property developer. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had also praised the team throughout La Vuelta, and it was widely seen as representing Israel.
We could debate the seriousness of all issues here for hours: from simple rider safety right up to the accusations of genocide being carried out by Israel in Gaza; from the EU’s double standards (banning Russia from sporting events but not Israel); from mixing sport and politics to the current diplomatic fallout between Israel and Spain.
Whilst I feel sorry for the riders and athletes participating in La Vuelta, I share the same view as the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez: ‘As long as the barbarity continues, neither Russia nor Israel should participate in any international competition.’
Sánchez has gone further, of course, openly calling it a ‘genocide in Gaza’ on several occasions now, and stating that Spain ‘is and will be on the right side of history’.
Last week, announcing a series of measures against Israel, he said that while Israel is entitled to defend itself, this right does not extend to attempts to ‘exterminate a defenceless people’. He also condemned what he described as the international community’s inaction in the face of the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza.
On Sunday, speaking at an event in Malaga before the final stage of the race was abandoned early in Madrid, he said: ‘Today marks the end of the Vuelta. Our respect and recognition for the athletes and our admiration for the Spanish people who are mobilising for just causes like Palestine.’
‘Spain today shines as an example and as a source of pride, an example to an international community where it sees Spain taking a step forward in the defence of human rights.’
Today (Monday) he went even further, reiterating his ‘deep admiration’ for the protesters who took part in rallies during various stages of La Vuelta - not just in Madrid.
And on that, I think he also has a point …
Because although the Madrileños are getting all the glory (again) for calling time on the final stage of La Vuelta, I think it’s only fair to salute the warm-up acts.
Catalonia kicked things off as far as protests are concerned (as is very often the case), during Stage 5 around Figueres - very much Dalíland for readers of ‘The Barcelona Connection’ ;). A small group of protesters stepped into the TTT (team time trial) and briefly blocked Israel–Premier Tech. TV cameras missed parts of it; the headlines didn’t. The team remounted and finished, but Catalonia had lit the fuse.
Then came Navarre for Stage 10, from Sendaviva to Larra-Belagua. Protesters spilled into the road, causing the Italian rider Simone Petilli to be knocked off his bike in the mayhem as riders swerved and braked to avoid the mob. Fortunately he was not seriously hurt and went on to finish the stage. However, Navarre was the moment the peloton collectively realised this wasn’t a one-off.
Then to Stage 11 in the Basque Country - where they also know how to protest - and to Bilbao itself where everything escalated. With barriers heaving with protesters near the finishing line, organisers took the time three kilometres out and declared no stage winner.
Stage 13 reached the foot of the Angliru in Asturias … and then stopped. Demonstrators blocked the road at the base, halting the break and race vehicles before police cleared a path.
Stage 15 in Galicia saw a lone demonstrator darting towards the road near Monforte de Lemos, causing a crash while he was being chased, with riders later abandoning the race from injuries. The following afternoon, the Stage 16 win was taken 8 kilometres early, with the finish moved to Mos to avoid a blocked final climb at Castro de Herville.
By the time La Vuelta reached Valladolid in Castilla y León, the organisers appeared to have learnt a lesson. They pre-emptively halved the ITT (individual time trail) to 12.2 km ‘for greater protection’.
Then came Madrid - the grand finale that wasn’t.
Stage 21 was supposed to be nine laps of late-summer fast cycling around the city. Instead, pro-Palestinian crowds pushed through metal barriers and occupied sections of the course, including the main Gran Via, where cyclists were due to pass multiple times. Police officers were forced into repeated attempts to clear the route.
At around 7pm local time, the organisers posted a short statement on social media: ‘For security reasons, stage 21 of La Vuelta has been ended early. There will be no podium ceremony.’
And there wasn’t. All thanks to the Madrileños … as well as protesters in Catalonia, Navarre, the Basque Country, Asturias, Galicia and Castilla y León.
A bit about meOn and off, I have worked in the media in Spain for some 30 years (click here for more info). Currently, in addition to writing my books set in Spain and developing one of them for the screen (see below), I also chat briefly most Wednesdays to Giles Brown on Talk Radio Europe about the latest news from Spain (am doing it again from 24 Sept).
Books, Reviews, Research, News & EventsThe Madrid Connection … coming this autumn‘The Madrid Connection’, the sequel to ‘The Barcelona Connection’, will be officially published on 21 November. I will be posting further details about the book over the coming weeks. The digital edition is available for pre-order here.
The Barcelona Connection - Research & development for the screenDevelopment for the screen: ‘The Barcelona Connection’ is currently in development as a film, and I hope I will be able to post further news about this here in due course.
Research: In my weekly ‘Letter from Spain’ from #7 right up to #42, I included notes about all the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection. Many of the posts include photos and descriptions of locations that appear in the book, from Nîmes, Figueres, Cadaqués, La Bisbal d’Empordà and, of course, many areas of Barcelona. There are also posts about Salvador Dalí’s Hallucinogenic Toreador and ‘The Face’, the Dalí Museum in Figueres, the Picasso Museum and MNAC in Barcelona, even Girona Airport and nearby motorway service station - as well as the G20 Spouse Party, museum visits and ‘art attacks’. I hope the notes about the research are of interest … and I hope you might buy, read and take The Barcelona Connection with you to some of the locations that appear in the book! If you do, please send me a photo and I’ll post it here …
The Barcelona Connection - Book & ReviewsA murder. A kidnapping. A lost Salvador Dalí painting. Just 36 hours to resolve all three. Every crime scene is a work of art …
Benjamin Blake is no ordinary detective. Specialising in the criminal underworld of stolen and forged art, things don’t always go the right way for Benjamin. But when they don’t, he has a stubborn determination to put them right.
Within hours of being sent to Barcelona to authenticate a possible Salvador Dalí painting, Benjamin is left stranded without his cell phone at a service station alongside a bloody corpse in the early hours of the morning, after being savagely attacked with his hire car stolen, together with the painting.
Helped and hindered by the fiery Elena Carmona, pursued by a psychopathic hitman, Benjamin becomes the prime suspect in a politically motivated kidnap and murder. All this on the eve of Barcelona hosting a G20 summit and UN climate change conference, with the police in hot pursuit fearing a wider terrorist threat.
From Nîmes in the South of France, across the border to the sweltering humidity of Girona, Barcelona, Figueres and Cadaqués, The Barcelona Connection is a fast-paced, gripping page-turner sprinkled with black comedy, blending the real with the surreal, art crime and mistaken identity … and where the clues at the crime scene might just be the mirror image of a long-lost work of art …
If you can’t locate a copy of The Barcelona Connection in your local store, it can be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBNnumber: 978-1-7393326-1-7.
It is also available in print or as an eBook via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from.
Click here for the latest reviews on Amazon and on Goodreads.
A review by Michael Eaude of The Barcelona Connection was published in the October 2023 edition of Catalonia Today.
‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’
‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’
A review by Dominic Begg of The Barcelona Connection was published in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.
‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’
‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’
Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.
‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’
‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’
Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.
A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid - Book & ReviewsEighteen years since it was originally published, ‘A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid’ has been re-issued with a new introduction, new cover and five extra chapters that were cut from the original book.
It is available in print and as an eBook worldwide, in both formats. You can also order the new paperback or digital edition via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or the digital version on Apple, Kobo, Smashwords, or on many other platforms by clicking here.
If you’ve never read the book, I hope you will now acquire a copy and laugh out loud. If you did read and enjoy the original edition, I think you’ll love this new edition with additional chapters! More details about the book and links to many reviews are below.
As with previous posts showing images and locations that form part of the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection novel (above), I am also planning to publish an archive of photos here of Madrid that relate to many chapters in ‘A Load of Bull’ - although it will take time! In Letter from Spain #52, I cover Chapter 1 - the Centro Colón aparthotel (entrance) Watch this space for further images …
A LOAD OF BULL - An Englishman’s Adventures in MadridThe hilarious true story of an Englishman sent to Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue …
In the late eighties Tim Parfitt blagged his way into a job at Condé Nast in London and from there into a six week stint in Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue. Six weeks turned into nine years, and helping out turned into running the company. Along the way, Tim Parfitt discovered the real 'real' Spain. He never saw a Costa and he certainly never bought an olive grove. Instead, he discovered a booming city in hedonistic reaction to years of fascism, where sleep was something you only did at work and where five hour lunches invariably involved a course of bull's testicles.
Tim Parfitt's rise from unwanted guest to paparazzi-pursued mover in Spain's glamorous social scene is a hilarious comedy of errors. Frothing with a language designed to make foreigners dribble, hospitalised by tapa-induced flatulence and constantly frustrated by the unapproachable beauty of the women parading through the Vogue offices, he nevertheless falls in love with a city, a country and its people - despite the fact he hasn't a clue what they're on about.
You can click here for all the reviews of A Load of Bull on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads.
Links to newspaper and magazine reviews:
‘A hugely entertaining memoir ... frequently laugh-out-loud funny.’ (The Daily Express)
‘Parfitt is no ordinary Englishman … his light touch and neat line in self-deprecating humour perfectly suits this entertaining urban spin on the old tale of Brits having fun under the Spanish sun.’ (The Sunday Times)
‘A love letter to Madrid ... brilliantly captures a truly eccentric and hedonistic place.’ (The Daily Mirror)
‘Often hilarious ... a side-splittingly funny travel memoir.’ (BBC Online)
‘Vivid yet affectionate … fascinating, escapist stuff.’ (OK! Magazine)
‘Magnificent ... brilliant and moving, hilarious and truthful.’ (La Vanguardia)
‘Don't miss it … Madrid through the eyes of an Englishman.’ (Vogue España)
Spanish editionA Load of Bull was also published in Spanish under the title, Mucho Toro - las tribulaciones de un inglés en la movida. Click here or on image below for the current eBook version.
Contact DetailsYou can email me at: tim.parfitt@hotmail.co.uk
Thanks for reading Letter from Spain! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
September 8, 2025
Letter from Spain #65
I’m back - hopefully every Monday from now on. I hope you’ve had (or are still having) a great summer. I spent mine writing, editing, re-writing, editing, re-writing, and still re-writing … but (touch wood) ‘The Madrid Connection’ will be available soon (see below).
This Substack blog is called ‘Letter from Spain’, which means it is normally about Spain, in one form or another. Today, it’s not only linked to Spain, but it’s also about Giorgio Armani, who died last Thursday, aged 91. Today, he was laid to rest in the 14th-century Church of San Martino, in the picturesque village of Rivalta, near Piacenza, the city where he was born.
Last week, many ex-colleagues from the Condé Nast and fashion-world days wrote wonderful tributes to Giorgio Armani. I also have a fun memory of being with him that I wanted to share with you.
Nearly 30 years ago now, I was invited to one of his own private cocktail parties in Milan, just after one of his fashion shows, and before a dinner to be attended by other guests. There were only about 20 of us at this exclusive pre-dinner soirée. I was 35 at the time, running Condé Nast in Spain, and I felt slightly out of place among some of the other guests (as you’ll see). I think Giorgio Armani could sense this, but in addition to being very charming, elegant and stylish - everything you might expect - he was also very kind to me. He put me at ease. He checked I was OK. He personally refilled my glass. We laughed out loud together - and I have a very fond memory of the man. RIP.
So … I wanted to share this true story about something that happened at his party, exactly as it was published in my first book - ‘A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid’. I’ll be back with a ‘Letter from Spain’ again next Monday.
This is the extract from the book:
It is early 1996. Kirsa and I, together with my new Spanish Vogue editor, Mara Malibrán, are in Milan for the night, attending some fashion shows, and the Giorgio Armani show in particular. It is a far cry from the day I first walked into Vogue House, London, at the age of eighteen, and asked for a job – and only got one because I reminded the personnel manager of her nephew.
A lady called Isabel Preysler is with us. Isabel Preysler is the ex-wife of the ever-tanned Latin crooner, Julio Iglesias, whom she married when she was just nineteen. She is therefore the mum of heartthrob Enrique Iglesias. She is also the ex-wife of the Marqués de Gríñon, or Carlos Falcó, as he prefers to be called, the aristocratic non-conformist who just happens to grow some of the best grapes in Spain. Today, however, she is the wife of the ex-Finance Minister of Spain, Miguel Boyer, one of the country’s most successful businessmen.
Isabel Preysler is Hola magazine’s constant and loyal cover star, a close friend of King Juan Carlos and the Spanish royal family, as well as an integral part of Spanish high society. She is the PR-mafia’s must-have guest at a never-ending social circuit where the Spanish glitterati of empresarios, singers, actors, writers, toreros, futbolistas, flamenco stars, designers, models and key social celebrities, all fight to rub Armani-clad shoulders with her. To me, she’s just a great lady in a great dress. It just so happens that since she’s also done an Armani shoot for us in Vogue, she’s become a sort of friend. She’s even hidden under the dashboard of my new Mercedes whilst I’ve smuggled her out of our office to avoid the paparazzi.
After his catwalk show, Giorgio Armani has invited us to his private quarters in the elegant palacete for a cocktail party before dinner. Among the guests are Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale, Martin Scorsese and Eric Clapton. An official Hola photographer takes shots of Isabel with Giorgio, then Isabel with Sophia, then Isabel with Claudia, then Isabel with Giorgio, Sophia and Claudia altogether.
I’m exhausted and could do with an early night back at the hotel (without any kids jumping on me in the morning), but I feel as if I am on the film-set of something which is too good to be missed. I eye Giorgio’s private telephone next to Sophia Loren. It has already rung once or twice for one of the guests and I am tempted to phone my dad in England from it and yell, ‘Hi, dad! Hang on a sec, I’m just going to pass you to Sophia Loren. Yes, Sophia Loren! No, the real one. Yes, the real Sophia Loren, dad!’ I can see myself covering the mouthpiece with my palm, passing it to Sophia, saying, ‘Just say, “Ciao, Ronnie …”’
Instead, I wander around the room, admiring the paintings and furniture, watching everyone else, and wondering what time we’ll be able to leave. Suddenly this woman approaches me. She’s an American, fairly tall, very, very thin, with wide eyes, a strange fixed grin, and taut stretched skin. She is watching Isabel being photographed and asks me if I know who she is.
‘Sure, I do,’ I reply. ‘That’s Isabel Preysler.’
‘And that photographer?’ asks the skeleton.
‘I think he’s with Hola,’ I say. ‘I think they’re doing an official shoot with her and Giorgio to cover his shows.’
She pauses, trying to take this all in.
‘Hola?’ she finally spits. ‘That’s that Spanish magazine, right?’
‘Right,’ I nod, quietly wondering who’s been rattling her cage.
She pauses again, then says sharply: ‘I always see people buying it at airports.’
‘Right,’ I nod. She’s said ‘buying’ as if it’s a crime. What are people supposed to do? This woman is highly-strung and wacko, no doubt about it. Whoever she is, she’s too rich, too thin and too irritating for me. ‘Right,’ I say again, trying to catch Kirsa’s eye. ‘Oh well, I suppose I’d better go and – ’
‘Why is it so popular?’ continues the skeleton, abruptly.
‘It’s also very successful in England,’ I say. ‘It’s called Hello over there. And I reckon they’ll launch a version in the States one day. Perhaps they could call it Hi.’
I start to laugh but she glares at me as if I’m demented.
‘Oh, really,’ she shrieks, as if I’ve just sprinted stark-bollock-naked across her lawn at the Hamptons. ‘You really think something like that would work in the States? I mean, it’s a European thing, isn’t it – what with all your royal families?’
I turn to have a good look at her.
She’s beginning to appear vaguely familiar but I still can’t place her. She’s glaring at me and by now, Kirsa has joined us, having overheard the last few lines of our conversation. ‘Oh,’ I say, oddly finding myself defending the Hola philosophy more than it deserves. ‘Hola and Hello don’t just publish pictures of royal families, you know. And anyway, even if you don’t exactly have a royal family, you still have the Kennedys, Trumps and all that crap …’
There’s a brief, deafening silence, before:
‘Oh. My. Gawwwd,’ whines the skeleton, twisting her head and neck around in what looks like agony. ‘Puh-lease don’t mention us both in the same sentence.’
‘I’m sorry?’ I say.
Kirsa whispers loudly in my ear.
‘Tim,’ she says. ‘It’s Jackie Kennedy’s sister …’
‘Oh, right,’ I say, turning beetroot and wanting to hurl myself out of Giorgio Armani’s window.
What was I even doing there? My love affair with Spain was never supposed to have turned out like this. I was sent to Madrid for six weeks nine years ago, for heaven’s sake. I’d overstayed my welcome by nearly a decade …
Click here to order ‘A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid’.
A bit about meOn and off, I have worked in the media in Spain for some 30 years (click here for more info). Currently, in addition to writing my books set in Spain and developing one of them for the screen (see below), I also chat briefly every Wednesday to Giles Brown on Talk Radio Europe about the latest news from Spain. If you’re interested, here’s the clip from Weds 3 September:
Books, Reviews, Research, News & EventsThe Madrid Connection … coming this autumn‘The Madrid Connection’, the sequel to ‘The Barcelona Connection’, will be published this autumn. I will be posting further details about the book over the coming weeks. The digital edition is available for pre-order here.
The Barcelona Connection - Research & development for the screenDevelopment for the screen: ‘The Barcelona Connection’ is currently in development as a film, and I hope I will be able to post further news about this here in due course.
Research: In my weekly ‘Letter from Spain’ from #7 right up to #42, I included notes about all the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection. Many of the posts include photos and descriptions of locations that appear in the book, from Nîmes, Figueres, Cadaqués, La Bisbal d’Empordà and, of course, many areas of Barcelona. There are also posts about Salvador Dalí’s Hallucinogenic Toreador and ‘The Face’, the Dalí Museum in Figueres, the Picasso Museum and MNAC in Barcelona, even Girona Airport and nearby motorway service station - as well as the G20 Spouse Party, museum visits and ‘art attacks’. I hope the notes about the research are of interest … and I hope you might buy, read and take The Barcelona Connection with you to some of the locations that appear in the book! If you do, please send me a photo and I’ll post it here …
The Barcelona Connection - Book & ReviewsA murder. A kidnapping. A lost Salvador Dalí painting. Just 36 hours to resolve all three. Every crime scene is a work of art …
Benjamin Blake is no ordinary detective. Specialising in the criminal underworld of stolen and forged art, things don’t always go the right way for Benjamin. But when they don’t, he has a stubborn determination to put them right.
Within hours of being sent to Barcelona to authenticate a possible Salvador Dalí painting, Benjamin is left stranded without his cell phone at a service station alongside a bloody corpse in the early hours of the morning, after being savagely attacked with his hire car stolen, together with the painting.
Helped and hindered by the fiery Elena Carmona, pursued by a psychopathic hitman, Benjamin becomes the prime suspect in a politically motivated kidnap and murder. All this on the eve of Barcelona hosting a G20 summit and UN climate change conference, with the police in hot pursuit fearing a wider terrorist threat.
From Nîmes in the South of France, across the border to the sweltering humidity of Girona, Barcelona, Figueres and Cadaqués, The Barcelona Connection is a fast-paced, gripping page-turner sprinkled with black comedy, blending the real with the surreal, art crime and mistaken identity … and where the clues at the crime scene might just be the mirror image of a long-lost work of art …
If you can’t locate a copy of The Barcelona Connection in your local store, it can be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBNnumber: 978-1-7393326-1-7.
It is also available in print or as an eBook via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from.
Click here for the latest reviews on Amazon and on Goodreads.
A review by Michael Eaude of The Barcelona Connection was published in the October 2023 edition of Catalonia Today.
‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’
‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’
A review by Dominic Begg of The Barcelona Connection was published in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.
‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’
‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’
Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.
‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’
‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’
Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.
A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid - Book & ReviewsEighteen years since it was originally published, ‘A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid’ has been re-issued with a new introduction, new cover and five extra chapters that were cut from the original book.
It is available in print and as an eBook worldwide, in both formats. You can also order the new paperback or digital edition via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or the digital version on Apple, Kobo, Smashwords, or on many other platforms by clicking here.
If you’ve never read the book, I hope you will now acquire a copy and laugh out loud. If you did read and enjoy the original edition, I think you’ll love this new edition with additional chapters! More details about the book and links to many reviews are below.
As with previous posts showing images and locations that form part of the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection novel (above), I am also planning to publish an archive of photos here of Madrid that relate to many chapters in ‘A Load of Bull’ - although it will take time! In Letter from Spain #52, I cover Chapter 1 - the Centro Colón aparthotel (entrance) Watch this space for further images …
A LOAD OF BULL - An Englishman’s Adventures in MadridThe hilarious true story of an Englishman sent to Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue …
In the late eighties Tim Parfitt blagged his way into a job at Condé Nast in London and from there into a six week stint in Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue. Six weeks turned into nine years, and helping out turned into running the company. Along the way, Tim Parfitt discovered the real 'real' Spain. He never saw a Costa and he certainly never bought an olive grove. Instead, he discovered a booming city in hedonistic reaction to years of fascism, where sleep was something you only did at work and where five hour lunches invariably involved a course of bull's testicles.
Tim Parfitt's rise from unwanted guest to paparazzi-pursued mover in Spain's glamorous social scene is a hilarious comedy of errors. Frothing with a language designed to make foreigners dribble, hospitalised by tapa-induced flatulence and constantly frustrated by the unapproachable beauty of the women parading through the Vogue offices, he nevertheless falls in love with a city, a country and its people - despite the fact he hasn't a clue what they're on about.
You can click here for all the reviews of A Load of Bull on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads.
Links to newspaper and magazine reviews:
‘A hugely entertaining memoir ... frequently laugh-out-loud funny.’ (The Daily Express)
‘Parfitt is no ordinary Englishman … his light touch and neat line in self-deprecating humour perfectly suits this entertaining urban spin on the old tale of Brits having fun under the Spanish sun.’ (The Sunday Times)
‘A love letter to Madrid ... brilliantly captures a truly eccentric and hedonistic place.’ (The Daily Mirror)
‘Often hilarious ... a side-splittingly funny travel memoir.’ (BBC Online)
‘Vivid yet affectionate … fascinating, escapist stuff.’ (OK! Magazine)
‘Magnificent ... brilliant and moving, hilarious and truthful.’ (La Vanguardia)
‘Don't miss it … Madrid through the eyes of an Englishman.’ (Vogue España)
Spanish editionA Load of Bull was also published in Spanish under the title, Mucho Toro - las tribulaciones de un inglés en la movida. Click here or on image below for the current eBook version.
Contact DetailsYou can email me at: tim.parfitt@hotmail.co.uk
Thanks for reading Letter from Spain! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
